Today's firms are faced with new competitive and technological
challenges. As a consequence, many senior executives are looking
for information technology (IT) leaders who not only can understand
technology but also can comprehend technology's potential to affect
business strategy. For the IT leaders, rising to such numerous,
and often conflicting, challenges is not easy. Indeed, there is
a higher than average corporate dismissal rate and shorter tenure
for IT leaders compared with other top executives. Based on the
responses from 213 IT leaders in the financial services industry,
this study found that the rank and role of a firm's IT leader
must be aligned with the firm's competitive strategy. The implications
of the findings for the firms' executives, as well as researchers,
are discussed in detail.
Key words and phrases: competitive strategy , information technology leaders , strategy-technology alignment