The importance of and the fast changes in the CIO's role in organizations are widely recognized. So is the need for CIOs to acquire the appropriate set of knowledge and managerial skills to lead the organization's effort in effectively using Information Technology. This study is based on an extensive survey of the literature addressing the desirable features of modern CIOs and the Information system area main activities. This study aims at evaluate (1) the impact of such features on the management performance of the IS department main activities and (2) their consequent impact on overall company performance. To empirically test these two relationships, 111 CEOs of companies located in Northern Italy were interviewed. The analysis of collected data provides some insights on the desirable features for modern CIOs, which in turn can be useful for CIO recruiting and professional development, and highlight the importance to properly manage the IS subfunctions in order to improve overall company performance.

The notion that effective relationships between groups improve coordination, cooperation and consequently performance has considerable appeal in a broad range of contexts. In particular, partnerships are viewed as critical organizational mechanisms enabling information systems groups and their clients within organizations to utilize existing information technology investments already in place and to tap the potential offered by information technologies. This paper proposes a theoretical model drawing from socio-cognitive theory, highlighting a convergence in perspectives on key issues between the groups as the mechanism underlying partnerships. Data from a survey of 671 managers on both sides of IS-User relationships in multiple firms provides support for the model and the hypothesized relationship between convergence in perspectives and the performance of IS groups. In particular, the results suggest that a convergent assessment of the perspectives of IS groups by Users significantly enhances the performance of IS groups. This paper is among the first efforts in the IS literature to use dyadic data provided by both IS and User groups to understand IS-User relationships. Keywords: IS-User Partnerships, Social Cognition Theory, Perspective Taking, IS Performance

research and the organizations participating in the research effort that chose to remain anonymous for their assistance in collecting the data. The first author also wishes to thank Gordon Davis, N. Venkatraman, Stephanie Watts and Weidong Xia for their helpful comments and Mark Bergen for his encouraging persistence that helped bring closure to the final draft! Linking IS-User Partnerships … 2Linking IS-User Partnerships to IS Performance: A Socio-Cognitive Perspective The notion that effective relationships between groups improve coordination, cooperation and consequently performance has considerable appeal in a broad range of contexts. In particular, partnerships are suggested as critical organizational mechanisms enabling information systems groups and their clients within organizations to utilize existing information technology investments already in place and to tap the potential offered by information technologies. This paper proposes a theoretical model drawing from socio-cognitive theory, highlighting a convergence in perspectives on key issues between the groups as the central mechanism underlying partnerships. Data from a survey of managers on both sides of 95 IS-User relationships in multiple firms provides support for the model and the hypothesized relationship between convergence in perspectives and the

This paper briefly reviews the IS valuation, planning and control literature and suggests several areas where the models and methods of accounting research may be of reference value to IS researchers. These areas encompass (i) method issues in assessing the value of IS investments, (ii) modeling the sources of value from IS, (iii) development of an integrative framework for implementing IS investments and (iv) development of measurement systems for better capturing the paths of IS effects across time.