The CIO and CDO socio-technical roles in the age of digital business transformation: an interpretive study

In this paper, a socio-technical perspective on the roles of Chief Information Officer (CIO) and Chief Digital Officer (CDO) is introduced, and a model of interpretation of their respective roles, their potential interplay and idiosyncrasies is presented and discussed. We start our analysis by proposing a socio-technical model based on typologies of CIOs and IT roles, as well as CIOs and Business Visions, and CIOs and Interpersonal roles taken from the literature, and used as a lens for viewing whether and how CDOs may fit into this model, collaborate with CIOs in pursuing the IT-business alignment vision, or should necessarily clash on the same territory. This model is then used to interpret the results of two empirical analysis about the evolution of CIOs and CDOs roles in Digital Business Transformation scenarios. We carried out interviews directly to CIOs of Italian companies, and use transcripts of online interviews to CDOs of American companies. Both materials deal with the themes of Digital Business Transformation and Strategy, of CIO/CDO’s profiles, and of attitudes toward tech trends such as Big Data, Internet of Things and 3D Printing. Notwithstanding their differences, these voices helped us understand what are the possible futures and configurations of CIO and CDO roles in organizations, in a fast changing innovation scenario like the one emerging from our analysis.