Abstract
Firms across all industries face new challenges from technology-enabled disruptions, which often originate from outside a firm’s known competitive market. In facing these new competitive threats, firms are turning to senior technology executives to assist and lead efforts to develop responses, to drive innovation, and to create value from their IT investments. Recently, new senior technology roles have emerged in corporate Top Management Teams (TMT). Beyond the well-known roles of Chief Information Officer and Chief Technology Officer, the rapid advances in technology in the early 2000s introduced new technology-related C-Suite titles, such as Chief Data Officer, Chief Digital Officer, and Chief Innovation Officer (collectively referred to as CXOs). Researchers have examined the impact of these roles individually using either event study methodology or comparison of firm performance measures. This dissertation examines the impact of the presence of a CXO on firm outcomes across two studies. Study 1, an event study, finds that the firm announcements of CXO appointments result in significantly negative abnormal returns. Study 2 compares firm performance measures and finds the presence of a CXO in the top-five compensated executives of the firm results in significantly better performance than their peers across the measures of return on assets, Tobin’s Q, and market to book value. This dissertation adds to the growing research on the functional TMT members by examining how firms create value across both well-known and emerging CXO roles, identifying the role, firm, and industry conditions that influence market reactions to announcements of CXO appointments and the firm performance outcomes of the presence of a CXO in the T5. The results support the notion that IT is in fact an important component to business and suggests the greatest value creation is found when firms embed technology leaders within the upper echelons of their management teams.