How Cats Are Herded: Sequencing CIO Influence Tactics for Various Coordination Mechanisms

Large organizations often utilize independent sub-units to pursue specific strategic and business objectives. These organizations have compelling reasons for independent sub-units to act in consistent, coordinated ways including costs, regulation, and customer priorities. Coordination is particularly important in the implementation of enterprise information technology (IT) and information systems (IS). As such, the Chief Information Officer plays a critical role in establishing effective coordination between organizational sub-units. Framed by information processing theory and influence tactics research, this theory building study proposes using event sequence analysis (ESA) to identify the portfolio of influence tactics that are most effective in achieving support for various coordination mechanisms in a federated IS governance structure.