Thesis advisor: Ana M. Martínez-Alemán / The dearth of women in executive positions within the field of information technology (IT) has been studied extensively in the corporate sector. That is not the case within higher education, despite the data collected showing that women attain the top executive role - that of the Chief Information Officer (CIO) - at much better rates than their corporate counterparts. Given this discrepancy, as well as the importance of technology in today's society, research was needed into the structural factors contributing to women's executive attainment in higher education IT organizations. Using a sequential explanatory mixed methods design, this dissertation study compared women and men higher education CIOs along a variety of individual and organizational characteristics, and examined elements related to women's ability to attain the CIO role. The study combined quantitative descriptive data on higher education CIOs, gathered via a web-based questionnaire and analyzed for significant differences between women and men in the population, with women CIOs' qualitative explanations of the quantitative findings via semi-structured interviews. 188 women and men (38 women and 150 men) participated in the questionnaire, and nine women who filled it out participated in the semi-structured interviews. All participants were higher education CIOs working at EDUCAUSE member institutions. Integrated findings from this study suggest that though few demographic differences exist between women and men in the population, higher education IT culture is based upon masculine norms, and as such, perpetuates biases against women leaders in the profession. Despite cultural norms that potentially dissuade women from working in the field, a number of environmental characteristics emerged associated with women's ability to secure the CIO position. These included stimulating work that is connected to the mission of higher education; flexible work options available at different points in IT employees' careers; the presence of women executives in academic institutions; and a nationally based professional development community focused on mentoring future generations of CIOs. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2013. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Educational Leadership and Higher Education.

A fronteira entre as áreas de negócios e as de tecnologia de informação (TI) vai deixando de existir e isso exige competências de gestão, baseadas em novos conhecimentos, habilidades e atitudes de liderança, que extrapolam as questões técnicas. A literatura disponível discute quais são as competências críticas de forma isolada, não as relaciona com a competitividade das empresas e não analisa o desempenho dos gestores em cada uma das competências consideradas críticas. Com o objetivo de compreender quais são as competências críticas de gestão em TI e qual é o desempenho dos gestores nessas competências, foi efetuada, neste estudo, uma revisão da teoria, a fim de elaborar um modelo de avaliação de desempenho e avaliar 149 gestores de TI. Essa avaliação foi baseada em 22 competências de gestão, organizadas em cinco áreas: gestão da estratégia de TI, gestão da inovação e tecnologia, gestão do valor da TI, gestão das equipes de TI e gestão do desempenho da TI. Na análise dos dados foram testadas dez hipóteses de pesquisa sobre as prioridades e o desempenho dos gestores de TI para poder analisar se há variação em função de fatores externos ligados ao negócio (orientação competitiva, segmento de mercado e porte do negócio) e de fatores internos (processos e funções exercidas em TI). Com base nos resultados, foi possível constatar que os fatores internos, mais que os externos, influenciam o desempenho dos gestores de TI, principalmente dependendo da função por ele ocupada dentro da organização de TI. As avaliações de competências dos gestores de infraestrutura foram superiores aos gestores de desenvolvimento e na escolha de prioridades, um maior número de gestores de infraestrutura elegeu a gestão da inovação e a gestão do valor como prioridade para o negócio. / The frontier between business and technology is reducing with technologies advance and it is requiring management competencies, based on new knowledge, skills and attitudes of leadership that go beyond technical issues. The literature discusses which competencies are critical, but it is not taking in count the business competitiveness and also does not analyzes the managers performance in each critical competency. Aiming to understand which competencies are critical in IT management and how is the performance of managers on these competencies, in this study has been conducted a theory review in order to develop a performance evaluation model and evaluate 149 IT managers based on 22 management competencies, which were organized in five areas: IT strategy management, innovation and technology management, IT value management, IT team management and IT performance management. In data analysis were tested ten research hypotheses about the priorities and performance of IT managers in order to conclude whether there is performance variation due to external factors related to the business (competitive orientation, market segment and company size) and internal factors (processes and functions in IT) that can influence the performance evaluations based on management competencies. Based on the results, it was found that the internal factors rather than external ones, influence the performance of managers, mainly depending on the role they have within the IT organization. The Competencies evaluations of IT infrastructure managers were higher than systems development managers and also most of them chose innovation management and value management as a business priority.

A fronteira entre as áreas de negócios e as de tecnologia de informação (TI) vai deixando de existir e isso exige competências de gestão, baseadas em novos conhecimentos, habilidades e atitudes de liderança, que extrapolam as questões técnicas. A literatura disponível discute quais são as competências críticas de forma isolada, não as relaciona com a competitividade das empresas e não analisa o desempenho dos gestores em cada uma das competências consideradas críticas. Com o objetivo de compreender quais são as competências críticas de gestão em TI e qual é o desempenho dos gestores nessas competências, foi efetuada, neste estudo, uma revisão da teoria, a fim de elaborar um modelo de avaliação de desempenho e avaliar 149 gestores de TI. Essa avaliação foi baseada em 22 competências de gestão, organizadas em cinco áreas: gestão da estratégia de TI, gestão da inovação e tecnologia, gestão do valor da TI, gestão das equipes de TI e gestão do desempenho da TI. Na análise dos dados foram testadas dez hipóteses de pesquisa sobre as prioridades e o desempenho dos gestores de TI para poder analisar se há variação em função de fatores externos ligados ao negócio (orientação competitiva, segmento de mercado e porte do negócio) e de fatores internos (processos e funções exercidas em TI). Com base nos resultados, foi possível constatar que os fatores internos, mais que os externos, influenciam o desempenho dos gestores de TI, principalmente dependendo da função por ele ocupada dentro da organização de TI. As avaliações de competências dos gestores de infraestrutura foram superiores aos gestores de desenvolvimento e na escolha de prioridades, um maior número de gestores de infraestrutura elegeu a gestão da inovação e a gestão do valor como prioridade para o negócio. / The frontier between business and technology is reducing with technologies advance and it is requiring management competencies, based on new knowledge, skills and attitudes of leadership that go beyond technical issues. The literature discusses which competencies are critical, but it is not taking in count the business competitiveness and also does not analyzes the managers performance in each critical competency. Aiming to understand which competencies are critical in IT management and how is the performance of managers on these competencies, in this study has been conducted a theory review in order to develop a performance evaluation model and evaluate 149 IT managers based on 22 management competencies, which were organized in five areas: IT strategy management, innovation and technology management, IT value management, IT team management and IT performance management. In data analysis were tested ten research hypotheses about the priorities and performance of IT managers in order to conclude whether there is performance variation due to external factors related to the business (competitive orientation, market segment and company size) and internal factors (processes and functions in IT) that can influence the performance evaluations based on management competencies. Based on the results, it was found that the internal factors rather than external ones, influence the performance of managers, mainly depending on the role they have within the IT organization. The Competencies evaluations of IT infrastructure managers were higher than systems development managers and also most of them chose innovation management and value management as a business priority.