IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/bushor/v60y2017i3p313-324.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The criticality of CMO-CIO alignment

Author

Listed:
  • Whitler, Kimberly A.
  • Boyd, D. Eric
  • Morgan, Neil A.

Abstract

This year, chief marketing officers (CMOs) will spend more money on IT than chief information officers (CIOs). This rapid shift in responsibility is creating a growing divide between CIOs and CMOs over firms’ IT investment decisions and actions, which is of increasing significance to firm performance. Understanding and managing this CIO-CMO divide is important in light of the magnitude of investment involved—global IT spending is estimated to exceed $4.1 trillion by 2018—and CEOs’ belief that technology is a critical success factor for future firm performance. Heretofore, there has been little investigation regarding the unique relationship between the CMO and CIO. The research reported herein addresses this shortcoming by revealing the results of in-depth interviews with CMOs and CIOs across multiple industries. The results identify the nature and sources of conflict between the two roles as well as the management-related mechanisms to overcome them, revealing the need for CEOs to focus on managing four specific sources of CMO-CIO conflict: perspective, goals, accountability, and structural conflict. While the CEO has the power to create the management-related mechanisms that promote greater CMO-CIO alignment, we also detail steps that the functional leaders can take to put the mechanisms in place should the CEO fail to do so.

Suggested Citation

  • Whitler, Kimberly A. & Boyd, D. Eric & Morgan, Neil A., 2017. "The criticality of CMO-CIO alignment," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 60(3), pages 313-324.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:bushor:v:60:y:2017:i:3:p:313-324
    DOI: 10.1016/j.bushor.2017.01.005
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0007681317300058
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.bushor.2017.01.005?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Deborah Dougherty, 1992. "Interpretive Barriers to Successful Product Innovation in Large Firms," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 3(2), pages 179-202, May.
    2. Abbie Griffin & John R. Hauser, 1992. "Patterns of Communication Among Marketing, Engineering and Manufacturing---A Comparison Between Two New Product Teams," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 38(3), pages 360-373, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kimberly A. Whitler & Ben Lee & Sarah Young, 2022. "The impact of boards of directors on chief marketing officer performance: Framing and research agenda," AMS Review, Springer;Academy of Marketing Science, vol. 12(1), pages 116-136, June.
    2. V. Kumar & Sourav Bikash Borah & Amalesh Sharma & Laxminarayana Yashaswy Akella, 2021. "Chief marketing officers’ discretion and firms’ internationalization: An empirical investigation," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 52(3), pages 363-387, April.
    3. Sharma, Amalesh & Yashaswy Akella, Laxminarayana & Bikash Borah, Sourav, 2022. "Knowledge structure of Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs): A review, bibliometric analysis, and research agenda," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 151(C), pages 448-462.
    4. Pravin Nath & Neeraj Bharadwaj, 2020. "Chief marketing officer presence and firm performance: assessing conditions under which the presence of other C-level functional executives matters," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 48(4), pages 670-694, July.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jinhong Xie & X. Michael Song & Anne Stringfellow, 1998. "Interfunctional Conflict, Conflict Resolution Styles, and New Product Success: A Four-Culture Comparison," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 44(12-Part-2), pages 192-206, December.
    2. Cuijpers, Maarten & Guenter, Hannes & Hussinger, Katrin, 2011. "Costs and benefits of inter-departmental innovation collaboration," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 40(4), pages 565-575, May.
    3. Pravin Nath & Neeraj Bharadwaj, 2020. "Chief marketing officer presence and firm performance: assessing conditions under which the presence of other C-level functional executives matters," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 48(4), pages 670-694, July.
    4. Po-Chien Li & Yen-Chun Chen, 2012. "How does social orientation influence R&D-marketing collaboration?," Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Springer, vol. 29(1), pages 151-168, March.
    5. Maltz, Elliot & Souder, William E. & Kumar, Ajith, 2001. "Influencing R&D/marketing integration and the use of market information by R&D managers: intended and unintended effects of managerial actions," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 52(1), pages 69-82, April.
    6. Jonathon N. Cummings, 2004. "Work Groups, Structural Diversity, and Knowledge Sharing in a Global Organization," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 50(3), pages 352-364, March.
    7. Anil K. Gupta & Paul E. Tesluk & M. Susan Taylor, 2007. "Innovation At and Across Multiple Levels of Analysis," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 18(6), pages 885-897, December.
    8. Proserpio, Luigi & Magni, Massimo, 2012. "Teaching without the teacher? Building a learning environment through computer simulations," International Journal of Information Management, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 99-105.
    9. Park, Hyun-Soo & Auh, Seigyoung & Maher, Amro A. & Singhapakdi, Anusorn, 2012. "Marketing's accountability and internal legitimacy: Implications for firm performance," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 65(11), pages 1576-1582.
    10. Wilhelm, Wilbert E. & Xu, Kaihong, 2002. "Prescribing product upgrades, prices and production levels over time in a stochastic environment," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 138(3), pages 601-621, May.
    11. Henri Barki & Alain Pinsonneault, 2005. "A Model of Organizational Integration, Implementation Effort, and Performance," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 16(2), pages 165-179, April.
    12. Krohmer, Harley & Homburg, Christian & Workman, John P., 2002. "Should marketing be cross-functional? Conceptual development and international empirical evidence," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 55(6), pages 451-465, June.
    13. Gopesh Anand & John Gray & Enno Siemsen, 2012. "Decay, Shock, and Renewal: Operational Routines and Process Entropy in the Pharmaceutical Industry," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 23(6), pages 1700-1716, December.
    14. Marco Tortoriello & Ray Reagans & Bill McEvily, 2012. "Bridging the Knowledge Gap: The Influence of Strong Ties, Network Cohesion, and Network Range on the Transfer of Knowledge Between Organizational Units," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 23(4), pages 1024-1039, August.
    15. Ko, Krista K.B. & To, Chester K.M. & Zhang, Z.M. & Ngai, Eric W.T. & Chan, Theresa L.K., 2011. "Analytic collaboration in virtual innovation projects," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 64(12), pages 1327-1334.
    16. Jody Hoffer Gittell, 2001. "Supervisory Span, Relational Coordination and Flight Departure Performance: A Reassessment of Postbureaucracy Theory," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 12(4), pages 468-483, August.
    17. Anca Metiu, 2006. "Owning the Code: Status Closure in Distributed Groups," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 17(4), pages 418-435, August.
    18. Latukha, M. & Veselova, A. & Selivanovskikh, L. & Artukh, E. & Mitskevich, E., 2016. "Re-thinking the role of talent management in a firm’s performance: Talent management practices and absorptive capacity," Working Papers 6442, Graduate School of Management, St. Petersburg State University.
    19. J. Miguel Villas-Boas, 2020. "Repeated Interaction in Teams: Tenure and Performance," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(3), pages 1496-1507, March.
    20. Kelley, Donna J. & Peters, Lois & O'Connor, Gina Colarelli, 2009. "Intra-organizational networking for innovation-based corporate entrepreneurship," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 24(3), pages 221-235, May.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:bushor:v:60:y:2017:i:3:p:313-324. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/bushor .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.