CIO competencies: A social representation analysis

Abstract

The Chief Information Officer (CIO) has become increasingly important for companies. However, one can perceive that this professional realizes that his/her competencies are not always enough to tackle a daily professional routine centered around the constant transformations the business arena has witnessed. Thus, by using the Social Representation Theory operationalized via the words evocation technique, this article intends to investigate what are the IT professional perceptions about the CIO core competencies, in order to compare them with the CIO perceptions about his/her own competencies. The work concludes that there is a strong cognitive dissonance between those perceptions, as just 'capacity to influence the organization' and 'technical expertise' are perceived as CIO essential competencies both by IT professionals and CIOs. Finally, this article points out the very need companies have to develop internal programs to overcome the aforementioned cognitive dissonance, as it can hinder an adequate IT-Business alignment in an organization.