Enhancing Digital Innovation: the Effects of CIO Political Skill and the Mediating Role of Issue Selling

Although the Chief Information Officers (CIOs) have the important responsibility for digital innovation in their organizations, it is difficult for them to meet the challenges of the organizational changes involved in relying on traditional structural power and expert roles. Drawing on political skill and issue selling theory, a study is conducted to explore how CIOs can use political skills to drive digital innovation. A theoretical model is presented and empirically tested using survey data collected from a sample of 218 matched pairs of CIOs and top business executives through multilevel regression analysis. The results suggest that: CIO political skill positively affects CIO issue selling effectiveness, which in turn positively affects enterprises digital innovation. CIO issue selling effectiveness fully mediates the positive effect of CIO political skills on enterprises digital innovation. Socio-behavioral integration between business executives positively moderates the relationship between CIO issue selling effectiveness and digital innovation. Accordingly, it is concluded that CIO political skills and issue selling effectiveness are enablers for digital innovation, and that CIO issue selling effectiveness and business executive socio-behavioral integration play a mediating and moderating effect, respectively. The research model proposed and empirically tested in this study bridges the research gap in CIOs effectively driving enterprises' digital innovation and can then provide some practical guidance.