Since, the available informational and technological resources constitute a source of prosperity and differentiation for the organisations, the role of the Chief Information Officer (CIO) is becoming more crucial and vital. The thirty years of the CIO's existence have shown a path of changes and difficulties on defining and establishing the particular role within the organisational context. The present study examines the CIO role evolution over the last thirty years, analyses the CIO role at the present time and discusses the CIO role in the future. The examination of the evolution of the CIO role identifies four main areas of interest that are used as the conceptual framework of the study. These areas relate to business strategy, innovation and competitive advantage, relationships building and external environment. Based on a qualitative research approach, nine case studies of existing CIOs are conducted and analysed from the private and the public sector. The analysis provides insights about the responsibilities of the CIOs, currently, regarding each one of the role aspects and the furthermore, particular responsibilities for these aspects. The results of the analysis demonstrate that within the CIO role responsibilities there are activities such as active participation in the strategic planning, exploitation of information management as an enabler of innovation, active facilitation of consultation processes with the stakeholders and finally, networking with outside organisations such as suppliers and customers but also networking with peers to share best practices. Regarding the future of the CIO role, it is argued that the CIO role includes responsibilities relating to technology management and it is counterproductive to separate these responsibilities to another C-level executive such as a CTO. Finally, it is argued that the CIO role enhances the dynamic capabilities of the organisation by helping it to improve its learning processes and the way it transforms its information resources. The results of the study have implications to both industry and academia. The proposed CIO role model could be used by industry as a guideline for the job description of the role in question, as well as an evaluation scheme for the post holders. With respect to academia, the proposed role model could be used to identify the skills necessary for a CIO and thus, to help inform areas in which university educational programmes should focus on.

Rollen som CIO är komplicerad och i ständig förändring. Rollinnehavaren ska förändra och förbättra organisationen samtidigt som CIO-rollen skapades utifrån ett behov av att erhålla en överblick och kunskap om vilka effekter beslut får. I dagsläget ligger mycket fokus på att CIO-rollen ska bidra med ökat värde till organisationen. Det finns dock ingen tydlig definition av vad CIO-rollen närmare innebär, grundat i specifik organisation kan rollens syfte variera. Avsaknad av en generell definition och konsensus av vad CIO-rollen innebär leder till att det är problematiskt att utvärdera rollen och hur väl den fungerar inom en organisation. Med denna studie ämnar vi påbörja arbetet med att tydliggöra CIO-rollen genom att identifiera kunskapsområden som är knutna till rollen. Dessa identifieras teoretiskt och studeras sedan empiriskt för att sättas i ett verklighetsperspektiv. Vi identifierar även utmaningar, saker att vidare studera som avser att underlätta det praktiska arbetet alternativt områden som kan bidra till att rollen blir tydligare. Vår kvalitativa fallstudie kring CIO-rollen består empiriskt av tre intervjuer. I vår analys studerar vi respektive kunskapsområden, det genom att studera den teoretiska CIO:n gentemot insamlad empirisk data. Vårt resultat är sex teoretiska kunskapsområden kopplade till CIO-rollen. Av de sex teoretiska kunskapsområdena har vi valt exkludera ett kunskapsområde. Det då vi empiriskt har identifierat att kunskapsområdet konkurrensfördelskunnande inte är relevant, då i huvudsak baserat på att våra intervjuobjekt verkar inom offentlig sektor. Vi kan utifrån vår analys dra slutsatsen att kunskapsområdet konkurrensfördelskunnande inte är ett viktigt område för CIO:er inom offentlig sektor. De områden som bekräftas relevanta är; ledarskapskunnande, verksamhetskunnande, strategiskt kunnande, kommunikativt kunnande samt IT-kunnande. Utmaningar vi har identifierat som är i behov av vidare studier är exempelvis vilka effekter ger en uppdelning av CIO-rollen samt hur påverkar uttalade förväntningar CIO-rollen. De utmaningar vi identifierat i studien anser vi behöver studeras mer för att bidra till att tydliggöra rollen. / The CIO role is complicated and constantly changing. The role holder must transform and improve the organization whilst the CIO-role was created out of a need to obtain an overview and understanding of the effects decisions gets. The CIO-role is today very focused on how the role will provide increased value to the organization. However, there is no clear definition of what the CIO-role is designed to aim for resulting in variance between the goal with and reason behind CIO:s in today’s organizations. The lack of a general definition and a consensus of what the CIO-role mean leads to a problematic task to evaluate the role and how well it functions within an organization. This study intends to begin the work on clarifying the CIO-role, this by identifying knowledge areas related to the role. These are identified theoretically and then studied empirically to be viewed in a reality perspective. We do also identify challenges, which is areas that need further research, designed to facilitate the practical work or alternately areas that can contribute to the role becoming more clear. Our qualitative case study about the CIO-role consists of three empirical interviews. We study respective knowledge areas in our analysis, this by studying the theoretical CIO against the collected empirical data. Our result is six theoretical knowledge areas related to the CIO-role. Of the six theoretical knowledge areas, we have chosen to exclude one. This when we empirically identified that the knowledge area competitive advantages is irrelevant, mainly based on that our respondents is working in the public sector. We can based on our analysis conclude that the knowledge area competitive advantages is not a key area for CIO:s in the public sector. The areas that we confirm as relevant are: leadership knowledge, business knowledge, strategic knowledge, communicative knowledge and IT knowledge. Challenges we have identified as in need of further research includes for example, the effects of giving a breakdown of the CIO-role and the impact of articulated expectations on the CIO-role. The challenges we have identified in the study are in need of further research in order to help clarify the role.