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Enterprise ontologies (EOs), introduced in the mid 1990s, were expected to have a significant impact on enterprise computing, especially integration. However, despite a great deal of academic research on EOs, the actual use of EOs in real-life integration and planning projects is almost nonexisting. This paper describes an approach to build and use EOs for information system (IS) planning and integration projects with particular focus on real-life eBusiness applications. The approach is based on firsthand practical insights gained through construction and use of an IS planning and integration environment that needs to capture business processes, enterprise applications, integration technologies, and computer-communication platforms. The planning model with the aforementioned information is based on an EO and is populated by a set of intelligent advisors while they guide the users through various stages of the planning process. This ontology has been used to support over 40 real-life business scenarios in the telecom, manufacturing, financial services, retail, healthcare, and insurance industries. The practical contribution of this paper is that it connects ontologies to the practice of IS planning and integration, links ontologies to decisions such as enterprise application selection, and provides tools for automatically creating and maintaining ontology repositories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the upper echelon theory, this paper studies the relationship between the individual characteristics of the Chief Information Officer (CIO) and organizational innovative usage of information technology (IT) by examining both the CIO's demographic characteristics and personality traits. Survey results from 89 CIOs strongly support our proposition. A CIO's personality traits of openness and extraversion and CIO's demographic characteristics of educational level have strong impact on the organizational innovative usage of IT even after controlling for organizational variables such as the organization's business strategy, outsourcing of IT operations, IT department age, and IT budget relative to revenue. This paper contributes to the age-old debate on whether managers matter in deciding an organization's strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Successful utilization of the firm's information technology (IT) investments continues to be a difficult but important task for senior business and information systems managers. This paper focuses on one potentially important determinant of IT investment outcomes—integration of business and IT planning. Integration is examined using three kinds of participation: business managers' participation in IT planning, IT managers' participation in business planning, and top managers' participation in IT resource allocation. Based on considerations of knowledge sharing and commitment, a theoretical model linking these three aspects to three potential consequences—quality of IT plans, IT project problems, and IT-based organization performance—and two antecedents—top managers' perception of IT importance and environmental heterogeneity—is developed. The model is tested using data collected through a survey of 274 chief information officer (CIO) respondents. Results of structural equation modeling analysis support 12 of the 15 hypotheses. Surprisingly, top managers' participation in resource allocation had a stronger association with IT-based organizational performance than either quality of IT plans or the absence of IT project problems. This implies that the role of IT planning and alignment might be weakened when investments reflect top managements' selection. Implications of the study for practice and future research are examined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information system (IS) leadership is a critical area for many organizations because of their increasing dependence on ISs both for operational stability and for enablement of process innovation and business strategy. IS Leadership is distinctive from leadership in general because the Chief Information Officer (CIO) is expected to combine IS technical skills with an in-depth understanding of the organization across all functions from operational to strategic. Thus, unique leadership challenges arise due to the technology/business interface. The breadth of the IS Leadership role implies that IS Leadership research needs to cover a wide range of topics concerning the role and characteristics of the CIO, the CIO's interface with the top management team, and the CIO's organizational impact. This essay discusses the distinctive aspects of IS Leadership, identifies the dominant themes in prior IS Leadership research, and introduces five papers on IS Leadership in this issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]