Although many firms have started to appoint chief digital officers (CDOs) to lead enterprise-wide digital transformation, it is unclear what type of CDOs can really help improve firms’ financial performance. Analyzing the CDO appointments of 158 S&P 500 companies from 2002 to 2019, our research shows that CDO appointments do help improve forward-looking firm performance, measured in terms of Tobin's q. We further find that the performance improvement is more pronounced when the CDOs are externally hired (rather than internally promoted) and when they are generalists with overall responsibilities (rather than specialists focusing on an explicit functional area). Therefore, while it is important to appoint a dedicated CDO to lead the uncertain, challenging digital revolution and improve firm performance, the effectiveness of such an appointment is dependent on how the appointment is made. These findings provide important implications for future research on CDO and for firms to reap more benefits from their CDO appointments.

中文翻译：

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数字化转型的主角：首席数字官对公司财务业绩的影响


尽管许多公司已经开始任命首席数字官 （CDO） 来领导整个企业的数字化转型，但目前尚不清楚哪种类型的 CDO 可以真正帮助改善公司的财务业绩。通过分析 2002 年至 2019 年标准普尔 500 指数成分股 158 家公司的 CDO 任命，我们的研究表明，CDO 任命确实有助于提高前瞻性公司绩效，以托宾 q 衡量。我们进一步发现，当 CDO 是外部雇佣的（而不是内部晋升的）并且当他们是承担总体职责的通才（而不是专注于明确职能领域的专家）时，绩效提升会更加明显。因此，虽然任命一名专门的 CDO 来领导不确定、具有挑战性的数字革命并提高公司绩效很重要，但这种任命的有效性取决于任命方式。这些发现为未来 CDO 的研究以及公司从 CDO 任命中获得更多好处提供了重要意义。