The Crucial Need for an Integrated ICT Leadership Approach toward Management with the Scope of Improving Profitability into Local Non-IT Companies (Case of Macedonia & Albania)

Developed countries of Western Europe are already familiar with the major technological boom and especially the period when technological advanced programming and ICT Leaders were in their first steps towards improving the performance of their companies. But we do not have the same overview in developing countries of Western Balkans, such as Albania & Macedonia.The 2012 Report of Global Information Technology shows that the results of NRI1 indicator which expresses the progress of ICT in different countries of the world have ranked those countries in some positions that are not so preferable compared with a large number of other countries of the world. The aim of this study relates to the identification of any internal organizational factor that causes a lack of technological progress and aims to give some recommendations on how to improve it in the future? A more detailed analysis of CEO-ICT relationships within the company can lead to a better outcomes of NRI indicator in the future and accelerate the progress of ICT in these companies. This relationship in itself is influenced by the leadership style, organizational structure and decision-making style. By comparing the data collected from 40 questionnaires completed by the ICT Leaders in Albania and Macedonia, taking into account the 12 interviews with experts of ICT in these countries, and analyzing statistical results that different national and international institutions has published during 2009-2011, our study highlights an important fact related to the actual relationship between CEO and ICT leaders of 40 companies in Albania and Macedonia. Results indicate that this relationship in the national companies of these two countries is more distant and formal, and actually the importance of ICT department is underestimated.