Career satisfaction for managerial and technical anchored IS personnel in later career stages

Abstract

Information system (IS) personnel have exhibit high incidence of technical and managerial anchors. It has been proposed that IS personnel with technical anchors have difficultly moving into a more advanced career stage that requires a greater emphasis on managerial skills (e.g., leadership) and activities. Using the data from a survey of IS professionals, we find that career satisfaction is positively and significantly correlated with career stage. Moreover, managerially anchored IS professionals are found to be more satisfied in the mentor stage than those who are technically anchored. However, no clear relationship between career anchors and career satisfaction was found in the sponsor stage. It appears that the combined effects of career anchor and stage is a more complex relation than previously thought in the literature. The results indicate that career programs discussed in the literature may need to be adjusted to accommodate advancement for those with a technical career anchor.