How Chief Digital Officers Promote the Digital Transformation of their Companies

By Anna Singh, Thomas Hess. MIS Q. Executive, 2020

638 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Chief Digital Officers (CDOs) are establishing themselves as new executives at the top management level of companies that go through a digital transformation. We present six case studies of CDOs and describe how they fulfill their positions. From these cases, we identify the main factors that drive the employment of CDOs, the three role types that CDOs primarily play and the skills and competencies they should have for each role type.

Subfields: Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering, Management Information Systems, Management of Technology and Innovation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/100e616568ea2edcc558300b30d61ebe1fe8ece3

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

In Management Information Systems

In Management of Technology and Innovation

Citations in the corpus

Digital transformation in business and management research: An overview of the current status quo (2022, background): “Singh and Hess (2017) contributed to research on strategic change, investigating the organization design parameters surrounding chief digital officers and their DT activities. der Schaft, Lub, der Heijden, and Solinger (2020) studied the effect of social interaction on the dynamics of psychological…”
Developing a unified definition of digital transformation (2021, background): “…especially CEO, CIO (Chief information officer), and CDO (Chief Digital Officers) (Haffke et al., 2016; Horlacher, 2016; Horlacher and Hess, 2016; Singh and Hess, 2017), to claim authority and responsibility for the strategy and implementation of the digital transformation of their organization.”
Digital transforming capability and performance: a microfoundational perspective (2020, background): “The reporting relationship between the leaders involved with digital transformation and the digital mindset of the workforce has also been highlighted as relevant (Sia et al., 2016; Singh and Hess, 2017).”
Digital transformation: A multidisciplinary reflection and research agenda (2021, positive): “…with digital technology to attain competitive advantage (Berman, 2012; Iansiti & Lakhani, 2014; Kane et al., 2015; Peppard, Edwards, & Lambert, 2011; Singh & Hess, 2017) (cid:129) Create new business opportunities and business models (Andal-Ancion, Cartwright, & Yip, 2003; Hansen,…”
Digital transformation and the new logics of business process management (2020, positive): “…and services typically require drawing from the a ﬀ ordances of several digital technologies at the same time, which is opposed to the received knowledge of a single sophisticated technology (e.g., ERP systems) driving transformation (Legner et al., 2017; Singh & Hess, 2017; Wessel, et al. 2020).”
Strategy archetypes for digital transformation: Defining meta objectives using business process management (2020, background): “As more and more companies encounter corresponding challenges, they have put digital transformation to the top of their priority lists [6].”
Exploring Human Resource Management Digital Transformation in the Digital Age (2023, background): “Furthermore, this transformation can help organizations to better interact with external customers through innovative technologies (Singh & Hess, 2020).”
Transforming business using digital innovations: the application of AI, blockchain, cloud and data analytics (2020, neutral): “Similarly, Basole (2016) and Singh and Hess (2017) explored emerging technological factors driving digital transformation.”
Unpacking the Difference Between Digital Transformation and IT-Enabled Organizational Transformation (2021, background): “For example, the literature on DT is replete with examples of executives claiming to make their organizations “more digital” (Haffke et al., 2016; Singh & Hess, 2017) but we know next to nothing about how middle management or even workers on the “ground floor” react to such claims (Alvarez, 2008;…”
The Effects of Digital Transformation on Firm Performance: Evidence from China’s Manufacturing Sector (2021, background): “A common choice is to change the top management, such as introducing new senior executives (e.g., Chief Digital Ofﬁcers) [66].”
Digital transformation strategy making in pre-digital organizations: The case of a financial services provider (2019, methodology): “The HDT reported directly to the CEO with duties comparable to those of a Chief Digital Officer (CDO) (Singh and Hess, 2017; Tumbas et al., 2017b).”