Innovative IT climates: CIO perspectives

In many organizations the CIO is a key driver of business innovation. This research investigates innovative CIOs in the context of their organizational climate theory. We explore the concept of innovative IT climates through qualitative analyses of interviews with 36 innovative CIO's. We identify and characterize four dimensions of innovative IT climates using a theoretical model based on the climate literature. Inductive grounded-theoretic methods are then utilized to develop two additional dimensions of innovative IT climates - reality-checking and promoting credibility. Findings expand our theoretical and empirical understanding of innovative IT climates and provide practitioners with specific examples of how CIO's are actively working to create innovative IT climates.