Information Asset Management Capability: The Role of the CIO

This paper discusses the perspectives and role of Chief Information Officers (CIOs) in developing Information Asset Management (IAM) capability in organizations. The data set was collected through personal interviews and two focus group sessions with CIOs from knowledge-intensive industries in the USA, South Africa and Australia. The research identified the building blocks of IAM capability, namely the need for organizations to view data, information and knowledge as valuable business assets, an understanding of the cost and benefit of managing these assets, strong leadership capability, the ability to make IAM decisions for strategic purposes, the importance of developing and maintaining a culture of sharing both tacit and explicit knowledge, as well as the deployment of the necessary tools. The research also suggests that the CIO plays a pivotal role in identifying the drivers, key focus areas, critical resources and underlying activities to develop such IAM Capability.