The fit between IS leadership style and business strategy to achieve business-IS strategic alignment

Alignment between business and Information Systems (IS) strategies has been identified as one of the most critical factors driving business success. As the top IS leader, the Chief Information Officer (CIO) plays a significant role in facilitating this alignment. Leadership literature suggests that leaders have different styles and thus different effects in different organizational contexts. However, it is not clear how the interplay between the leadership style of the CIO and the business strategy of a firm will affect its IS-business strategic alignment. Drawing on the leadership theory, strategic management and alignment literature, we propose a research framework and argue that CIOs with transformational leadership style fit best with firms adopting the prospector strategy, CIOs with transactional leadership style fit best with firms adopting the defender strategy, while firms adopting the analyzer strategy will need CIOs who are capable of exhibiting different leadership styles at different times. A method was then proposed to compute the alignment between CIO leadership style and business strategy. Theoretical and practical implications of the framework are discussed finally.