CFOs in e‐business: e‐architects or foot‐soldiers?

Abstract Both the role of the CFO (chief financial officer) and the discipline of accounting can be viewed as being in transition due to developments in the e‐Business world. One perspective suggests that CFOs are becoming ‘e‐process architects’—an alternative suggests that the CFO role is becoming commoditized to ‘foot‐soldier’ status with other roles such as CIOs (chief information officers) and CTOs (chief technology officers) staking a claim to its traditional accounting space. In this paper we present some preliminary evidence relating to this e‐architect/foot‐soldier question, and on levels of e‐Business activity, based on data obtained from over 120 CFOs in the Irish ICT sector. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.