The influence of chief data officer presence on firm performance: does firm size matter?

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between the chief data officer’s (CDO) presence and firm performance, and the moderating effect of firm size. Design/methodology/approach The performance data for 64 treatment firms with CDOs and 64 control firms without CDOs is collected from Compustat database. The Wilcoxon signed-rank test is used to analyze the performance differences between treatment firms and control firms. Hierarchical regression method is used to test the moderating effect of firm size. Findings The results indicate that the profit ratios of treatment firms are significantly improved after the appointment of CDOs, and the profit ratios of treatment firms are significantly higher than that of the control firms. For the cost ratios, the findings provide some empirical evidence revealing two of the cost ratios are lower and only one ratio is higher for the treatment firms after CDOs’ appointment. Firm size moderates the relationship between the CDO’s presence and firm performance indicator, ROS, in the same direction. Firm size has no moderating effect on relationships between CDO’s presence and other performance indicators. Practical implications The findings provide practical insights that will help managers to realize the importance of CDOs and their work. CDOs would bring some cost to the firms, but they would bring more profit to firms. In addition, if for large firms, the CDO’s presence would bring more ROS. Originality/value The study explores the relationship between the CDO’s presence and firm performance. It is the first attempt to explore the CDO’s presence and the cost performance in the specific time period, and the study is also the first attempt to analyze the moderating effect of the firm size on the relationship between the CDO’s presence and firm performance.