Information Systems Executives: The Changing Role of New IS/IT Leaders

INTRODUCTION Information systems (IS) / information technology (IT) leadership has undergone fundamental changes over the past decade (Cross et al., 1997; CSC, 1996; Stephens et al., 1995). Despite increased interest in recent years (e.g., Armstrong and Sambamurthy, 1995; Brown et al., 1996; Earl and Feeny, 1994; Rockart et al., 1996), little empirical research on IS leadership has been conducted. Recommendations in the literature on how to succeed as an IT/IS manager typically lack empirical evidence (e.g., Baxter, 1997). The Applegate and Elam (1992) study of newly appointed IS executives motivated this research. Their study defined a new senior IS executive as one who had been in the position for two years or less, and an established IS executive as one who had been in the position for more than two years. This research applied the same definitions. RESEARCH QUESTIONS The study addressed the following questions: 1. What are the main leadership roles of new IS executives? Do they differ from those of established IS executives? 2. What are the individual characteristics of new IS executives? Do they differ from those of established IS executives? 3. What are the characteristics of new IS executives' positions? Do they differ from those of established IS executives? LEADERSHIP ROLES Managers undertake activities to achieve the objectives of the organization. Mintzberg (1994) notes a number of different and sometimes conflicting views of the manager's role. He finds that it is a curiosity of the management literature that its best-known writers all seem to emphasise one particular part of the manager's job to the exclusion of the others. Together, perhaps, they cover all the parts, but even that does not describe the whole job of managing. Mintzberg's role typology is frequently used in studies of managerial work (e.g., Pinsonneault and Rivard, 1998). Describing the manager's work has been an ongoing pursuit of researchers and practitioners. The manager's work is characterised by brevity, variety, fragmentation of tasks, a preference for action (as opposed to reflection), and a preference for oral communication over formal reports (Mintzberg, 1994). Managers in organizations are continuously confronted by an array of ambiguous data and vaguely felt stimuli that they must somehow order, explicate and imbue with meaning before they decide on how to respond (Kuvaas, 1998). Kotter (1999) identified two main roles for executives: agenda setting and network building. While agenda setting is concerned with figuring out what to do despite uncertainty and an enormous amount of potentially relevant information, network building is concerned with getting things done through a large and diverse group of people despite having little direct control over most of them. A number of models describing the manager's work have been proposed including functional descriptions such as planning, organising, directing, controlling, co-ordinating, and innovating. Similarly, frameworks based on the methods used to accomplish these functions, for example, Mintzberg's role typology, have been proposed. According to Mintzberg (1990), the manager's job can be described in terms of various roles: 1. Informational Roles. By virtue of interpersonal contacts, both with subordinates and with a network of contacts, the manager emerges as the nerve centre of the organizational unit. The manager may not know everything but typically knows more than subordinates do. Processing information is a key part of the manager's job. As monitor, the manager is perpetually scanning the environment for information, interrogating liaison contacts and subordinates, and receiving unsolicited information, much of it as a result of the network of personal contacts. As a disseminator, the manager passes some privileged information directly to subordinates, who would otherwise have no access to it. …