What Makes Fractional CIO Engagements in SMEs Successful? – A Research Framework

Abstract

As information technology (IT) becomes more important for organizations, the necessity for strategic IT management and alignment grows. However, most small-to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) do not have the resources or appeal to employ a full-time Chief Information Officer (CIO). Refraining from assigning such responsibilities can have severe consequences on an organization's performance. To address this gap, several individuals already follow the role of holding CIO positions at multiple SMEs, each with a fraction of their time. While the so-called "Fractional CIO" role is already creating value in practice, there is no research on Fractional CIO engagements. This paper develops a research framework for Fractional CIO engagement success based on interviews with 40 Fractional CIOs from 10 countries and existing literature. The components influencing success are the Fractional CIO, the client, their relationship, and the engagement setup. The paper contains implications for theory and practice and outlines detailed next steps.

Traction with fraction: Strategic IS management in SMEs through Fractional CIOs

“…Therefore, we launched a major research project in November 2020 with the participation of Fractional CIOs from 10 different countries to investigate the role of the Fractional CIO. We derived a definition of the role and different types of engagements [16], identified and evaluated factors for the success of Fractional CIO engagements [17,18], and analyzed the Fractional CIO's role in mainland Europe, namely the German market [17]. Partially similar to an article we published recently in German [19], this article summarizes the findings of the research project with the intention of making them accessible to a wider audience of academics and practitioners.…”

“…The second study on the Fractional CIO was conducted in two phases. First, between May and September 2021, we developed a framework of success factors for Fractional CIO engagements [17]. We used the analyzed interview data from the first Fractional CIO study [16] to quantitatively and qualitatively assess specific topics of interest.…”

“…A concourse is a collection of all possible statements on a specific topic [23]. We created the concourse for the success factors of Fractional CIO engagements based on the research framework from Kratzer [17] (see Figure 1). Using existing literature from the fields of CIO [e.g., 27] and consulting [e.g., 28] as well as empirical data from the interviews by Kratzer et al [16] and expert interviews, we extracted a representative Q-sample with 25 statements from the concourse.…”

“…Overview of the three preceding Fractional CIO studies[16][17][18][19] (translated and adapted table from[19] licensed under CC BY 4.0 DEED -https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)…”