Career Anchors of MIS Undergraduates and IS Professionals in Taiwan: A Longitudinal Comparative Study

Abstract

The career anchors of IS professionals play an important role in affecting the selection of occupations. MIS students are one of the principal sources for IS employees. Insight in the career anchors of MIS students provides information that can help MIS students to plan their careers and assist organizations in recruiting IS labor that better matches their needs and reduces turnover. A longitudinal study was undertaken to provide for the long-term nature of both MIS undergraduate and IS professional careers. The comparisons were done using longitudinal data collected at four points in time to determine patterns and similarities. Judgment sampling was used to select nine universities in the south, north, and centre of Taiwan for the MIS undergraduate samples and random sampling was used to mail questionnaires to IS professionals on two occasions. According to the longitudinal analysis, MIS undergraduates needed higher organizational stability, service, and autonomy but lower geographical security and technical competence. The dominant career anchors of MIS undergraduates show the shift away from geographical security, creativity, and autonomy toward organizational stability. Female undergraduates indicated significantly lower levels of technical competence. Male students put more emphasis on variety in 2002 and geographical security in 2008. MIS undergraduates in technology-oriented universities put more emphasis on organizational stability, creativity, and autonomy anchors than students in general universities. For 2002, the means of creativity, geographical security, identity, and technical competence career anchors of MIS undergraduates were significantly higher than IS professionals. For 2008, only the mean of technical competence of MIS undergraduates was significantly higher than IS professionals.