How chief executive officers in large organizations view the management of their information systems

As part of a research programme on key information systems (IS) management issues, a survey of Australasia's largest organizations was conducted to identify which issues were perceived by their chief executive officers (CEOs) as being important, problematic and critical over the next 3-5 years. The results reported are based on a moderate response rate (though perhaps reasonable for the target group) but formal testing showed an absence of non-response bias. The most critical issues were revealed to be a mix of technology management issues (managing and measuring the effectiveness of the information technology (IT) infrastructure, and disaster recovery), strategic management issues (business process redesign, competitive advantage, and information architecture), people and support management issues (organizational learning, and executive and decision support) and systems development and data management issues (effective use of the data resource and effectiveness of software development). This reflects their interest in a wide range of issues, but all with an organization-wide focus. The non-critical issues were mostly related to the individual technologies and the place and role of IS in the organization. While the CEOs showed some agreement with their chief information officers (CIOs) on issues such as the IT infrastructure, competitive advantage and organizational learning, some distinct differences exist, particularly in relation to the quality and effectiveness of systems and processes and also how CEOs and CIOs perceive the IT knowledge of the CEOs.