We conceptualize the new phenomenon of the Fractional Chief Information Officer (CIO) as a part-time executive who usually works for more than one primarily small- to medium-sized enterprise (SME) and develop promising avenues for future research on Fractional CIOs. We conduct an empirical study by drawing on semi-structured interviews with 40 individuals from 10 different countries who occupy a Fractional CIO role. We derive a definition for the Fractional CIO, distinguish it from other forms of employment, and compare it with existing research on CIO roles. Further, we find four salient engagement types of Fractional CIOs offering value for SMEs in various situations: Strategic IT management, Restructuring, Rapid scaling, and Hands-on support. The results reveal similarities with existing CIO roles as well as novel insights concerning the different engagement types. Lastly, we propose a research agenda for the Fractional CIO field, based on four research themes derived from existing CIO research and insights from the interviews.

我们将 Fractional 首席信息官 (CIO) 的新现象概念化为兼职高管，他通常为不止一家主要的中小型企业 (SME) 工作，并为未来研究 Fractional CIO 开发有前景的途径。我们通过对来自 10 个不同国家的 40 名担任部分 CIO 角色的个人进行半结构化访谈来进行实证研究。我们得出了分数型 CIO 的定义，将其与其他就业形式区分开来，并将其与现有的 CIO 角色研究进行比较。此外，我们发现了四种突出的参与类型的分数 CIO，它们在各种情况下为中小企业提供价值：战略 IT 管理、重组、快速扩展和实践支持。结果揭示了与现有 CIO 角色的相似之处以及关于不同参与类型的新颖见解。最后，我们基于从现有 CIO 研究中得出的四个研究主题和访谈中的见解，提出了分数 CIO 领域的研究议程。