Chief Digital Officers: Role and Impact

• Chief Digital Officers (CDOs) roles are debated, with some seeing them as vital for digital strategies and transformation, while others foresee their decline

Industries and CDOs

• CDOs are emerging across industries like retail, finance, insurance, manufacturing, and construction
• Besides large corporations, they are impacting digital transformation in municipal governments and educational institutions
• CDOs appointments keep rising across the sectors
• In 2020, CDOs were on the agenda of Mayo Clinic, HSBC German branch, and Staffio HR in India

CDO Role

• After 15 years, the CDO position is still debated, focusing on their role profile, contribution to digital transformation, and future prospects
• A comprehensive review of CDO literature is lacking, hindering building on findings and identifying research questions
• IS executives have a review but it is limited, focusing on CIOs and using a narrow theoretical perspective
• CDO research covers major theoretical lenses, research designs, and themes, and organizes CDO literature into antecedents, the CDO role, and consequences
• Research builds on literature gaps to develop a future CDO research agenda
• Useful directions toward research avenues are contributed, guiding management of digital transformation studies
• Direction is offered by compiling pressing questions on factors that lead to CDO presence, their role and impact in top management teams, as well as contingencies
• Insights on how studies can extend perspectives on ephemeral top executives, digital change management, management fashions, or upper echelons theory is explored

CDO Responsibilities

• CDOs are tasked with initiating, conducting, and accelerating digital transformation across sectors and countries
• CDOs differ from CIOs, interacting cross-functionally across business units, resulting in diverse role profiles
• MTV Networks and McGraw Hill used the CDO title in 2005 and after 2010, CDO recruitment accelerated
• CDO prevalence reached five percent in S&P 1500 firms in 2018
• CDOs increased between 2015 and 2017, especially in manufacturing, construction, finance, and insurance
• Germany and France have CDOs unlike the US or the Netherlands
• Practitioners debate whether CDOs will remain or disappear
• Consulting studies stress CDOs' potential to drive digital strategy at management levels
• Deloitte reports on operational improvements after appointing CDOs with strong mandates
• McKinsey & Company points to CDOs' potential as coordinators during the COVID-19 pandemic
• A Bain Capital report features successful CDOs, such as Adam Brotman, who helped Starbucks become a global brand leader by introducing mobile payment

CDO Outlook

• Some wonder about the possible disappearance of CDOs
• The World Economic Forum (WEF)said, “Chief Digital Officers are doomed to fail", after a consulting study reported a slowdown in CDO appointments between 2016 and 2018
• The role might disappear as other executives take ownership of digital transformation
• Chief Transformation Officers might soon replace CDOs
• Researchers are devoting attention to CDOs, as they may act as facilitators of enterprise-wide change, and might create costs, like internal complexity

CDO Research

• There are numerous unresolved questions on CDOs' potential, current prevalence, future diffusion, and diverse roles
• Contribution to knowledge to give an overview of what is known about this executive role
• Used are established processes for systematic literature reviews to ensure a comprehensive account
• "chief digital* officer*" was selected as a keyword that had to appear in either title, abstract, or keywords
• Manual checks made to ensure it was in in fact focus of each article
• English articles were included to make the cited literature transparent to a global English-speaking audience
• Peer-reviewed papers published until July 2020 were surveyed
• Publications search covered IS and management journals, practitioner outlets, and conference proceedings
• Intention to obtain a complete and up-to-date picture of the literature on CDOs
• Articles added and removed during literature research steps shown

Research Steps

• In Web of Science (WoS), identify articles on CDOs across disciplines

• In, EBSCO Business Source Premier (EBSCO) listing peer-reviewed studies from practitioner-oriented journals are consulted

• From major IS conferences including the Association for Information Systems eLibrary (AISeL), publications are included

• Included are conference proceedings to integrate recent findings and extended literature variety

• Consulted is IEEE Xplore

• Additional Publications from the field of management sought via Academy of Management (AOM) Proceedings

• One relevant article was added based on expert recommendation

• 31 articles retrieved as preliminary sample

• Read all articles and excluded two studies which did not reveal any insights on CDOs

• Excluded one literature review which did not add any new concepts or empirical evidence

• Search one additional relevant article cited within the initial sample backwards

• Titles like "digital directors" were considered which however, did not yield any additional relevant studies

• 29 articles sample size arrived at after above approach

• During reading rounds, then coded each study based on main theoretical, methodological, and thematic details

• An organizing framework was developed synthesizes knowledge on CDOs

• Studies reviewed detailed data, including publication details (authors, year, database, outlet), theoretical lenses, research designs and themes

• Analysis of publication details show publications from earliest in 2015

• Most studies were IS conferences, then publications in practitioner-oriented journals

• 21% of articles appeared in theory-oriented journals, and 10% within management proceedings

Organizing Frameworks

• Organized in three sections to structure the research as antecedents, CDO role and consequences
• The left displays the antecedents of CDO presence, such as individuals, the firm and the environment
• Center focuses the CDO role, prototypical and professional roles and hierarchical positions
• The right side highlights consequences including intermediate or digitalization related outcomes
• Framework includes the theoretical perspectives used

Theoretical Pwespectives in Research

• A variety of economic and management perspectives, as well as sociological and psychological theories are used
• Applied perspectives like IT professionals competence framework and configurational theory provide further insights

Major Coding Categories

• Theoretical lenses
• Short descriptions of the specific theoretical lenses within CDO research
• Includes key ideas and assumptions, key representatives of the respective theories
• The theory's relevance for CDO research
• Themes observed through respective theory lens
• Articles that view CDOs from the respective theoretical perspective

Research Designs

• Research approaches reveal mostly empirical research designs
• Summary gives details on type of research design, data collection, and data analysis
• Shown is number of studies and study references that use the respective research approach
• Qualitative studies, derive results mostly from interview data and cross-case analyses
• Qualitative studies employ an exploratory approach to gather first insights on CDOs
• Descriptive case studies seek to reveal patterns and connections, in relation to theoretical constructs, in order to advance theory development

Quantitative Studies

• Quantitative studies analyze archival data from secondary sources and apply regression models or event study methodologies
• Study employs survey data to develop a scale measuring digital transformation strategy alignment among C-level managers
• Mixed-methods studies, two build on cross-case analysis and survey data to validate interviewees' responses
• Another two mix survey data and interview data and one combines archival data, survey data, and interview data
• Three studies employ qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) approaches that build on survey data, and fsQCA for configurational analyses
• One study employs a Delphi methodology, to derive consensus from experts' opinions on a topic
• In analyzing amount of performance data on CDOs to derive KPIs for CDOs
• Analyzed are empirical studies with respect to the characteristics of their samples
• Tendencies regarding firm size, industry, and geography revealed from analysis

Studies

• Large or publicly listed firms are observed
• Data analyzed is from firms of various sizes with broad range
• Most studies analyze data from companies across multiple industries
• A minority explicitly observes one distinct industry
• The geographic scope has, with researchers frequently collecting data in global, European, or North American firms
• One study adds data from Australia and South America, studies in individual countries focus on the US or Germany

CDO presence

• Antecedents of CDO presence include factors concerning individuals, the entire organization, or its external environment
• Such factors, alone or in combination, might trigger CDO appointments
• Individual-level antecedents of CDO presence explored through the lens of ambidexterity
• Organization and the environment level antecedents of CDO presence are often observed through exploratory case studies or through lens of contingency theory

Individual Level

• Companies hire CDOs to complement IT executives who do not meet digital leadership expectations
• A positive relation between CIO and CDO presence comes from CIOs are missing relevant digital leadership abilities
• Senior managers appoint CDOs as digital strategists when IT support and strategy often opposed

Board Composition

• Board composition, affects CDO presence, and scholars propose that boards with older directors are less likely to hire CDOs because they are less open to change.

Firm Level

• For business as a whole, an increasing demand for a centralized role that coordinates digital initiatives tends to lead to CDO presence
• Internal complexity of firms increases need for CDO through markets and geography scope, need for digital strategy rises
• IT and marketing departments accelerating CDO appointments
• Firm's digitization focus area impacts CDO
• Firms with external focus i.e marketing tend to have more CDOs as it's all customer related

Environment Level

• Business leaders see to be responding to market pressures and digitize industry for sake of their companies
• CDOs driven by imitation
• Country-specific institutional settings can influence companies access to information and communication technologies (ICT), eg regulatory frameworks

CDO role

• Scholarly focus was via investigating CDO types and interactions, from variety of economic and management perspectives
• Also from sociological and psychological theories applied perspectives as well as configurational theory

CDO Types

• Given that CDOs are relatively new and prototypical roles (various skill levels and professional background
• Scholars have also found what CDOs and roles at top managments are, including those on a team level or board position