Matching business strategy and CIO characteristics: The impact on organizational performance

This paper examines the match between chief information officer (CIO) characteristics and the organization's business strategy and how this match influences the organization's business performance. Based on the theoretical underpinnings of typologies of business strategy, alignment between IT strategy and business strategy and upper echelon theory, this study proposes a research model. This study uses survey data from 81 CIOs/IT managers to test the model empirically. The results indicate that a match between business strategy and CIOs of certain repertoires of competencies, experiences and personalities could lead to better organizational performance. The business performance in “matched” organizations is significantly better than that in “mismatched” ones.