Universiteit Leiden M.Sc. ICT in Business and the Public Sector Thesis Roles, position and IT governance of the departmental CIO at the Dutch central government (Rijksoverheid) and its maturity potential. Name: Jeroen Neve Date: 10/04/2019 1st supervisor: Drs. P.M. van Veen 2nd supervisor: T.D. Offerman, Msc M.Sc. Thesis Leiden University (LIACS) Niels Bohrweg 1 2333 CA Leiden The Netherlands Abstract The position of departmental CIO was initiated (in 2008) in order to control & supervise IT projects on strategic ministerial level and make crucial steps in the organization and coordination of information management within the ministry. As ministries differ in scale and vitality of the IT activity, the CIO function differs per ministry. In this study, we have examined the leading roles, position, IT governance and maturity potential of the departmental CIO. In the literature section, we have defined seven main themes in order to clarify the CIO environment and made the distinction between the general interpretation of the CIO, public sector CIO interpretation and what is already known in Dutch central government context. As the definition of Chief Information Officer (CIO) firstly emerged during the '80s as a senior executive responsible for establishing corporate information policy standards and takes management control over all information resources. The CIO in Public sector context emerged during the ‘90s were the environment of the Public sector CIO is known to be less flexible and more risk-averse in contrast with their private sector counterparts. In terms of responsibilities, we have seen the Rijksoverheid CIO holds mainly responsibility in the domains of IT strategy, information portfolio management and raises advice- and prioritize IT among ministry board members. In terms of roles and position, several sources stated the rapid evolvement of technologies which enlarged the CIO role and also influenced the position of the CIO within the organization. In Public Sector context we have mainly found that the CIO has to report to several higher positioned members and leadership ability has a crucial element in order to enhance the relevance and value of IT. In order to organize the IT governance, a distinct vision in several domains such as political forces, market forces (technical relevance), customer forces (citizen minded) and internal forces emerged including well-devinded decision mechanisms and measurement metrics to accomplish the vision. Furthermore, we have assed three maturity models in the relevance of this study and found that IT value created by the CIO in the public sector is concerned towards economical value (cost reduction) and political value (information accuracy and social benefits). In order of the literature review, we have found several knowledge gaps concerned the domains of responsibilities (digitalization and appliance of data), roles (enlargement CIO role), IT governance (IT strategy alignment and IT decision making) and maturity (relationships of the CIO within the environment). To address these gaps qualitatively, an interview guide was conducted, and we were able to speak all 12 ministerial CIO's were finally 11 CIO's contributed and 1 deputy CIO. The result section states the average period CIO's were fulfilling this position was three years, were most CIO's (5 out of 12) were performing this position of CIO combined with the function pSG (ministry board position). Also emerged that CIO's felt responsible in the domains of data, information and digital transformation. However, the roles they were performing were mainly in the domain of advising top management in terms of IT, controller, coordinator, and motivator. Also, the IT strategy was mainly declared in following the ministry strategy and raise support in order to formulate new policies. In conclusion we have found several contradictions during this study. Were the literature states that the CIO has to build credibility in terms of relationships and simultaneous have to build (economic and political) IT value to become strategic relevant, we have mainly seen several CIO's which were shortly established in this position and had an agenda-setting role. However, more experienced CIO's declared during the interviews decisive relevance (leadership) is crucial in this role. In terms of maturity attributes several studies elaborate already on the leadership ability of the CIO. We’ve raised the attributes of IT decision structures including evaluation methods and enlargen the public value of IT (citizen minded, technical relevance, mutual responsibility of IT at several levels) in relation to the departmental CIO. Table of content Chapter 1. Introduction ............................................................................................................ 1 1.1 Background .................................................................................................................... 1 1.1.1 The early-beginning of the departmental CIO at the Rijksoverheid ................................... 1 1.1.2 The departmental CIO in the last decade (2008-2018) .................................................... 2 1.1.3 Departmental CIO role vs function................................................................................ 3 1.1.4 Governmental CIO’s ................................................................................................... 4 1.2 Research objective ........................................................................................................... 5 1.3 Research question ........................................................................................................... 5 1.4 Delimitations ................................................................................................................... 5 1.5 Definition of key concepts ................................................................................................. 6 1.6 Structure of the report ..................................................................................................... 7 Chapter 2. Relevant literature and theoretical framework .............................................................. 8 2.1 CIO definition .................................................................................................................. 9 2.2 Responsibilities of the CIO ...............................................................................................12 2.3 Roles of the CIO .............................................................................................................17 2.4 CIO positioning ...............................................................................................................22 2.5 IT Governance................................................................................................................26 2.6 CIO maturity ..................................................................................................................30 2.7 IT Value creation ............................................................................................................35 2.8 Summary and Conclusions Theoretical framework ...............................................................37 2.9 Research Gap .................................................................................................................40 Chapter 3. Method ..................................................................................................................41 3.1 Research strategy ...........................................................................................................41 3.2 Research design .............................................................................................................41 3.3 Participant selection ........................................................................................................43 3.4 Qualitative data collecting method ....................................................................................44 3.4.1 Interview Guide ........................................................................................................44 3.4.2 Multiple perspective ...................................................................................................44 3.5 Data analysis & quality attributes .....................................................................................45 3.5.1 Interview Transcription ..............................................................................................45 3.5.2 Analysis of interview data...........................................................................................45 3.5.3 Qualitative data analysis (coding method) ....................................................................45 3.5.4 Validity and Reliability ...............................................................................................46 3.5.5 Limitations ...............................................................................................................47 3.6 Disclaimer .....................................................................................................................47 Chapter 4. Research results .....................................................................................................49 4.1 Departmental CIO background .........................................................................................49 4.2 Departmental CIO roles ...................................................................................................51