The chief information officer (CIO) is responsible for bridging the gap between two critical domains—technology and business, making the CIO's job uniquely different from other executives. As digital technologies become increasingly important to firms' competitive success, boards of directors and senior executives seek to align the CIO role with overall firm's objectives. Agency theory suggests that one way to create the alignment between an executive's efforts and firm performance is to implement appropriate equity compensation incentives (i.e., those resulting from stock and stock options) tying the executive's wealth to firm value. To date, research does not address what factors a firm should consider when designing CIO incentives and how these incentives influence firm performance. To address this major gap, we examine both the antecedents and performance consequences of CIO equity incentives. We assess organizational, environmental, and individual factors that influence CIO equity incentives and find that environmental and organizational factors are more important than individual CIO characteristics in the determination of CIO equity incentives. We also find that firms that create higher CIO equity incentives realize greater subsequent accounting and market performance. Our research contributes to the IT personnel literature by showing how firms can use compensation policies to leverage the CIO role to enhance overall business performance.

首席信息官（CIO）负责弥合技术和业务这两个关键领域之间的鸿沟，从而使CIO的工作与其他高管截然不同。随着数字技术对公司的竞争成功变得越来越重要，董事会和高级管理人员试图将CIO的角色与公司的总体目标保持一致。代理理论认为，使高管人员的努力与公司绩效保持一致的一种方法是实施适当的股权补偿激励措施（即由股票和股票期权产生的激励），以将高管人员的财富与公司价值联系起来。迄今为止，研究还没有解决公司在设计CIO激励措施时应考虑哪些因素以及这些激励措施如何影响公司绩效。为了弥补这一重大差距，我们研究了CIO股权激励的前因和绩效后果。我们评估了影响CIO股权激励的组织，环境和个人因素，发现在确定CIO股权激励时，环境和组织因素比单个CIO特征更为重要。我们还发现，创造更高CIO股权激励的公司可以实现更高的后续会计和市场绩效。我们的研究通过展示公司如何使用薪酬政策来利用CIO角色来提高整体业务绩效，从而为IT人员文献做出了贡献。以及影响CIO股权激励的个人因素，并发现在确定CIO股权激励时，环境和组织因素比个人CIO特征更为重要。我们还发现，创造更高CIO股权激励的公司可以实现更高的后续会计和市场绩效。我们的研究通过展示公司如何使用薪酬政策来利用CIO角色来提高整体业务绩效，从而为IT人员文献做出了贡献。以及影响CIO股权激励的个人因素，并发现在确定CIO股权激励时，环境和组织因素比个人CIO特征更为重要。我们还发现，创造更高CIO股权激励的公司可以实现更高的后续会计和市场绩效。我们的研究通过展示公司如何使用薪酬政策来利用CIO角色来提高整体业务绩效，从而为IT人员文献做出了贡献。