icegov2012 proceedings

Public CIO, Figurehead or Decision-Maker? The case of
Germany.
Niels Proske
University of Potsdam, Chair of
Business Information Systems and E-
Government
August-Bebel-Str. 89
14482 Potsdam, Germany
+49 331 977 4681
nproske@wi.uni-potsdam.de
ABSTRACT
In this paper, we analyze the position of CIO in the German states.
In Germany, public CIOs range from figureheads to real decisionmakers.
We identified three CIO types: first, the Political CIO,
who has substantial resources but less IT competencies; second,
the Operational CIO, who manages IT primarily close to actual
projects; third, the Decorative CIO, who serves predominantly for
public image. Thus, the institution of CIO moves between
catchphrase and e-government enabler.
Categories and Subject Descriptors
K.6.1 [Project and People Management]: Strategic Information
Systems Planning
General Terms
Management, Human Factors, Theory, Legal Aspects
Keywords
CIO, Leadership in Public Authorities, Empirical Comparison
1. INTRODUCTION
CIOs gladly accept prizes for excellent e-government strategies,
give keynote addresses at fairs or conferences and are interviewed
about the importance of collaboration under public authorities.
But what is their actual impact on shaping and advancing the use
of IT in the public sector? Whereas research has given a lot of
attention to the position of Chief Information Officer in
companies, their equivalents in the public sector however have
been scarcely addressed by research. Given the public sector’s
peculiar determining conditions that are likely to affect the CIO’s
design and functions, findings from both science and practice,
should not be transferred carelessly. Especially since high
Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for
personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are
not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies
bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for
components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored.
Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, to republish, to
post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission
and/or a fee.
ICEGOV '12, October 22 - 25 2012, Albany, NY, USA
Copyright 2012 ACM 978-1-4503-1200-4/12/10...$15.00
Moreen Heine
University of Potsdam, Chair of
Business Information Systems and E-
Government
August-Bebel-Str. 89
14482 Potsdam, Germany
+49 331 977 4690
mheine@wi.uni-potsdam.de
346
Norbert Gronau
University of Potsdam, Chair of
Business Information Systems and E-
Government
August-Bebel-Str. 89
14482 Potsdam, Germany
+49 331 977 4681 3372
ngronau@wi.uni-potsdam.de
expectations are tied to the introduction of the CIO position.
Leadership failures or even the lack of adequate management is
one of the biggest obstacles of e-government activities, which are
for the most part activities of strategy and organizational change
[2] [5] [10]. A lack of political guidelines and an often too late
integration of crucial decision makers are constraining egovernment
progress in general. As a mean to address these
shortcomings, the concept of a Chief Information Officer, inspired
by private sector, emerged in public sector.
Introducing CIOs in the public sector indicates a shift towards
greater centralization as well as recognition that in order to
succeed in e-government a more holistic, inter-agency approach is
necessary [7] [8]. Thought to bridge the gap between IT and
highest-level executives [2], the position of CIO is also
understood as institutionalization of the organization’s egovernment-strategy
[6]. The rise of the CIO concept underlines
in particular the strategic importance of e-government for
organizational change in the public sector overcoming it’s
limitation to merely technical means [4].
CIOs in public sector are exposed to a particular environment,
with political implications, directly affecting their working
conditions. This leads to certain CIO models that often reflect
both power structures and relevance attached to e-government.
The objective of this paper is to explore and describe roles and
functions of CIOs in German federal state governments and to
assess whether this so gloriously titled position is actually more
than just symbolic.
2. DEFINITION OF TERMS
The term Chief Information Officer firstly appeared in the early
1980s in the private sector [1]. For W. R. Synnott the CIO is “the
highest ranking executive with primary responsibility for
information management. The CIO is responsible for the planning
and architecture of the firm’s information resources, for
promoting information technology throughout the firm, and for
looking after the corporation’s investment in technology” [9]. The
implementation is a visible expression of a changed view on
information and information systems that had become a
substantial production factor [12] and "can increase productivity
and provide better management support" and hence created a new
management dimension [11]. Focussing on hierarchy Boyle and
Burbridge define the CIO position as "an executive with broad