Supervisor Support and Career Anchor Impact on the Career Satisfaction of the Entry-Level Information Systems Professional

Abstract:

Keeping satisfied information systems (IS) professionals at the entry level has become a difficult task for IS managers. Financial incentives have led to escalating costs without widespread improvement of the situation. To capitalize on nonfinancial rewards, organizations must understand the relationships between employees’ internal desires, the environment fostered by the organization, and career satisfaction. This paper is a report on a study of 101 entry-level IS professionals. The data analysis indicates that IS professionals find more satisfaction with their career when supervisor support is prominent and an adequate range of opportunities that satisfy career desires exist within the organization.

Key Words and Phrases:

• career anchors
• career satisfaction
• MIS entry-level personnel
• supervisor support

Additional information

Notes on contributors

James J. Jiang

James J. Jiang is the Max Watson Professor of Computer Information Systems at Louisiana Tech University. His Ph.D. in computer information systems was awarded by the University of Cincinnati in 1992. His current research interests include project management and information technology infrastructure of knowledge-based organizations. He has written more than sixty academic articles in journals such as, IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, Communications of the ACM, Decision Support Systems, and the Project Management Journal. He is a member of IEEE, ACM, and DSI.

Gary Klein

Gary Klein is the Couger Professor of Information Systems at the University of Colorado in Colorado Springs. He obtained his Ph.D. in management science at Purdue University. He served with Arthur Andersen and Company in Kansas City and was director of the Information Systems department for a regional financial institution. He was previously on the faculty at the University of Arizona, Southern Methodist University, and Louisiana Tech University and served as Dean of the School of Business at the University of Texas of the Permian Basin. His interests include project management, knowledge management, system development, and mathematical modeling, and he has over sixty academic publications in these areas.