Manajemen | Fakultas Ekonomi Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji joeb.84.2.118-125
Journal of Education for Business
ISSN: 0883-2323 (Print) 1940-3356 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/vjeb20
Students' Perception of IS Academic Programs, IS
Careers, and Outsourcing
Ben Martz & Teuta Cata
To cite this article: Ben Martz & Teuta Cata (2008) Students' Perception of IS Academic
Programs, IS Careers, and Outsourcing, Journal of Education for Business, 84:2, 118-125, DOI:
10.3200/JOEB.84.2.118-125
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.3200/JOEB.84.2.118-125
Published online: 07 Aug 2010.
Submit your article to this journal
Article views: 40
View related articles
Citing articles: 6 View citing articles
Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at
http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=vjeb20
Download by: [Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji]
Date: 11 January 2016, At: 22:47
Downloaded by [Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji] at 22:47 11 January 2016
Students’PerceptionofISAcademic
Programs,ISCareers,andOutsourcing
BENMARTZ
TEUTACATA
NORTHERNKENTUCKYUNIVERSITY
HIGHLANDHEIGHTS,KENTUCKY
ABSTRACT. Theauthorscomparedthe
perceptionsofinformationsystems(IS)studentswiththoseofISpractitionersregardingIScareers,thepracticeofoutsourcing,
andacademicprograms.Resultsindicate
thatstudentsandpractitionersappreciatetheintegrationofreal-lifepracticein
academicprogramsandthatthegeneral
perceptionofIScareersisneutralbysex.
However,studentandpractitionerperceptionsdifferaboutoutsourcing,fundamental
jobskills,andIS-specificskills.
Keywords:ISacademicprograms,IS
careers,outsourcingperceptions
Copyright©2008HeldrefPublications
118
JournalofEducationforBusiness
M
anyoftoday’shigh-techcompanieshaveusedoutsourcingorits
sister activity offshoring (outsourcing
beyondgeographicborders)ascost-cutting measures. Stefancic (2004) asserted, “In its simplest form, outsourcing
involves the use of resources outside
of the organization to perform routine
tasks” (p. 11). However phrased, outsourcing and offshoring have reached
a significant level of importance for
the general economy and the job categories and careers in the information
systems (IS) industry. The justification
andresultsoftheseactivitiesvary.
Someresearchershavesuggestedthat
there is no aggregate lowering of U.S.
production (Garner, 2004) or that outsourcingisanormalevolutionofbusiness practices (Bhaggwati, Panagariya,
& Srinivasan, 2004). One study conducted by the Information Technology
AssociationofAmerica(2005)suggestedthatoffshoreoutsourcinghasapositiveaffectonthecountry’seconomyby
ultimately lowering production costs
for IT vendors, in turn lowering the
product costs for consumers. Brainard
andLitan(2004)pointedout,“Offshoring is closely related to technological
advance: both offshoring and technologicaladvancesaredrivenbycompetitive pressures to reduce costs and both
resultindisplacementofexistingjobs”
(p. 2). Other researchers have looked
at outsourcing from the perspective of
service activities (Kraemer & Dedrick,
2004), strategic benefit (Tapper, 2005),
outsourcingsuccess(Lee&Kim,1999),
costsavings(Stefanic,2004),andcompanyagility(Teece,2000).
However, outsourcing and offshoring have created several unintended
consequences, such as resistance from
employeesandcustomerdissatisfaction
with the outsourced activities (Aron &
Singh, 2005). One such consequence
that Arabe (2005) pointed out is the
higher impact of planning and project
management skills. Her summary of
several recent analyses of outsourcing
problemsshowedthatcompaniesdonot
yetfactorintheimplicitcostsofshoddy
projectmanagement,poorcommunication, and misguided transition plans.
Even the ethicality of outsourcing has
beenraisedinrelationtosocialresponsibility (Harrison & Kren, 2004). As
Haskett,Sasser,andSchlesinger(1997)
pointedout,thecostsofacquiringaservice may, in some cases, outweigh the
price.Intheend,ifoverallcostsavings
cannot be achieved, companies usually
do not find enough value in offshoring
(Barthelemy,2001).
In the end though, regardless of the
aggregate impact, economic pressures
mount on companies at the local level
toreducecosts.Thenegativesentiment
grows toward those IT companies that
outsource,similartothereactiontoJapanesecarsduringthe1980s(Sharma&
Yamamoto, 2004). This negative sentiment spills over into the perception of
the IT and IS industry as a whole and
astudent’sperceptionofacareerinIT
andIS(Bruce&Martz,2007).
Downloaded by [Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji] at 22:47 11 January 2016
PerceptionAboutISCareers
There has been a continuous discussion in academia about the diversity
inherentinIScareerdevelopment(Gallivan, Truex, & Kvasny, 2004; Lee,
Koh,Yen, & Tang, 2002; Trauth, Farwell,&Lee,1993).Trauthetal.stated
that the “IS profession is being pulled
in opposite directions. One is toward
more human and business orientation.
Theotheristowardthetechnicalskills
requiredtomaintainafirm’stechnology
infrastructure.Theresultisaknowledge
explosion”(p.300).
Researchers in IS have identified
many issues related to skills that an
ISprofessionalmusthave.Themapof
issuesisshapedbywhatskillsthecompanies need, the skills that end-users
need, the skills that are advertised by
companiesintheirjobads,andtheskills
that IS academics think are necessary.
Ingeneral,ISprofessionalsarerequired
tohavenotonlytechnicalskillsbutalso
nontechnicalskills.Stone(2006)identifiedandcategorizedthenontechnical
skills:communicationskills(beableto
communicate the technical content in
written and oral presentations); businessskills(e.g.,knowledgeinmarketing, finance); and management skills
(e.g., people management, teamwork,
human resource management, leadership, etc.). The lack of business skills
hasanegativeimpactonpromotionsof
IS personnel to management positions
in a company. Further, McGee (1996)
advised that the main factor contributing to the failure of an IT professionalpromotedtoamanagerposition
is people skills. He found that 40% of
the promoted IT professionals failed
because they were lacking communication and business skills such as the
ability to build alliances or have clear
linesofcommunicationintheteamsin
whichtheyparticipate.
Recent researchers (Gallivan et al.,
2004; Lee, 2005) have investigated the
trendsofhiringISprofessionalsonthe
basisofwhatskillscompanieslistinthe
jobadvertisements.Gallivanetal.concluded that employers have increased
the requirements for technical skills.
Technical skills specified in the job
advertisements had increased by 40%
between1988and2001.
Lee (2005) investigated the career
pathofanISprofessionalfromanother perspective. After Lee determined
whether the majority of positions are
in hardware- or software-related jobs,
hecontinuedbyinvestigatingwhichof
those positions provides a more successfulcareerforanITperson.Results
of his study showed that Fortune 500
companiesrequiremoresoftwareskills
than hardware skills. One important
implicationofthisstudyisthatsystem
analysts’ skills and the skills related
toenterprise-widesystemseasetransitions to higher positions, such as IT
manager, whereas programmers’ skills
arelesssoughtforhighermanagement
positions. The implication is that to
be successful in the IT career path,
employees should be able to understandnotonlyITandISfunctionsbut
alsootherbusinessfunctionsand—perhaps more important—functions that
involveexternalparties,suchassuppliersandcustomers.
Differences between the sexes have
provided another arena for differences
in IT career perceptions. Researchers
haveexploredwhethersexdiscrimination
existsintheISandITcommunity.Contradictoryresultshavebeencollectedand
reported. InformationWeek continuously
indicatesthesalarygapbetweenwomen
and men. According to its 2005 salary
survey(Chabrow&Smith,2005),women
receive approximately $9 for every $10
thatmenearninwagesandbonuses.On
the other hand, Sumner and Niederman
(2004)suggestedthatcareerexperiences,
jobtasks,andjobsatisfactionofwomen
andmenintheITfieldarerelativelysimilar.Theresultsoftheirstudyshowedthat
womenperformthesamejobtasksasdo
men,andwomenshowedahigherlevelof
satisfaction with financial rewards from
theircurrentITjob.
PerceptionsAboutISAcademic
Programs
TheperceptionsofISacademicprograms play an important role in the
continuous debate over what skills an
IS professional needs for a successful
career in IS or IT. To date, research
conducted on this topic has focused
on two main topics: (a) how IS curricula have changed to better address
the real-life need for IS skills and (b)
howISprogramsareadvertisedtomake
prospectivestudentsawareofapossible
careerinIS.
Studies have also been conducted
on understanding what an IS program
should deliver and how IS curricula
shouldchangetobetteraddresspractitionerneeds.Al-ImamyandFarhat(2005)
noticed a perception gap between IS
academicsandISpractitionersonwhat
amanagementinformationsystemsprogram should be. Their results showed
that IS academics focus more on the
fundamental concepts and frameworks,
which help their students in the longterm future to build deep knowledge.
Yet, the IS community expects recent
graduatestoknowcurrenttechnologies
andbeabletosolvebusinessproblems
immediately upon being hired. The IS
community expects recent graduates to
be knowledgeable enough on current
problems and technologies in order to
cuttrainingexpenses.
The implication of the aforementioned findings in practice is twofold.
First, because management and business skills are not highly ranked in an
ITcurriculum(Lee&Reichgelt,2005),
IT graduates from these programs will
have problems succeeding in business
careers. Peslak (2005) noted that IS
majors’ lack of knowledge of business
conceptsnegativelyaffectedtheirprogress in understanding how software
worksinthebusinesscontext.TheconcernisthatISstudentslackthebusiness
knowledgerelatedtobusinessprocesses
used to work across traditional functional areas such as finance, marketing,production,andaccounting.Future
employers consider such nontechnical,
process-related skills to be important
andevenrankthemhigherthantechnicalskills(Cappal,2001/2002).
ThesecondproblemwiththeperceptionofISacademicprogramsisrelated
tohowISprogramsareadvertisedand
the students’ level of awareness of the
potential of a career in IS. A survey
of IS majors and nonmajors revealed
November/December2008
119
that nonmajor students are not well
informedaboutthejobs,tasks,salaries,
jobenvironments,andjobreputationsof
anISprofession(Berry,2006).Theydid
not recognize the difference between a
computerscienceprofessionalandanIS
professional.
Downloaded by [Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji] at 22:47 11 January 2016
METHOD
Inthepresentstudy,wesurveyedstudents and IS professionals in the MidwesternUnitedStatestostudyrelations
among their perceptions about IS academicprograms,careers,andoutsourcing.Thefocusofthestudywasonthe
followingbroadquestion:
Doperceptionsofthepracticeofoutsourcing, the necessary characteristics
of IS careers, and the requirements for
theISacademicprogramdifferbetween
studentsandprofessionals?
StudyandParticipants
This study used a survey questionnairetoobtaininsightsonpractitioners’
andstudents’perceptionsconcerningIS
academicprograms,IScareers,andIS
outsourcing.ThequestionnairewasdistributedtoseniorISstudents,members
oftheadvisoryboardofanISprogram,
and IS professionals in the Midwest.
ThestudytookplaceduringNovember
and December 2006. During those 2
months, data were collected from 169
students majoring or minoring in IS.
We collected 51 questionnaires from
members of IS curriculum advisory
boards and other IS practitioners in
theMidwest.
Analysis of demographic data about
thepractitionerparticipantsshowed(a)
a range of professional experience in
ISfrom2to52years,withanaverage
of 12.96 years (SD = 9.12 years); (b)
43.6% of participants were engaged in
thepublicsector,and32.7%ofparticipantswereengagedintheprivatesector;
and (c) 29.4% of practitioner participantsheldagraduatedegreeinIS,and
58.8%ofpractitionerparticipantshelda
bachelor’sdegreeinIS.
Students who participated were
enrolledingraduateandundergraduate
IS classes at a Midwestern university;
78.6% of them were graduates, and
21.4% of them were undergraduates.
120
JournalofEducationforBusiness
Students were asked if they had reallifeexperienceasISemployeesandfor
thelengthofthatexperience.Ofthem,
58% indicated that they have never
workedinanyIS-relatedjobpositions.
The remaining 42% were currently
workingasISemployees,witharange
from 1 to 20 years and an average of
2.1 years of such work experience.
The majority of student participants
(65.5%)weremen.
SurveyInstrument
The questionnaire that we used had
three parts (see Appendix). The first
part of the questionnaire contained
questions constructed with a 5-point
Likert-typescalerangingfrom1(low)
to 5 (high), asking participants to rate
their level of agreement on 23 questions related to perceptions of IS outsourcing, IS career, and IS academic
program.Thesecondpartofthequestionnaireaskedparticipantstoratethe
level of importance of having general
skillsandIT-andIS-relatedskills.The
participants rated the importance of
both groups of skills in two different
timeperiods:NowandIn3years.The
lastpartofthequestionnairecontained
demographic questions that varied on
the basis of the two groups of participants: student and practitioner demographic questions. The questionnaire
was previewed for clarity by two IT
professionals and three IS students.
Theircommentsandsuggestionswere
considered for the final version of the
surveyquestionnaire.
RESULTSANDDISCUSSION
SPSSVersion14.0wasusedtogather the descriptive statistics. As Siegel
(1956) indicated, we used the MannWhitneytesttoidentifythesignificant
differences that participants reported.
Table 1 indicates the areas showing a
significant(p
ISSN: 0883-2323 (Print) 1940-3356 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/vjeb20
Students' Perception of IS Academic Programs, IS
Careers, and Outsourcing
Ben Martz & Teuta Cata
To cite this article: Ben Martz & Teuta Cata (2008) Students' Perception of IS Academic
Programs, IS Careers, and Outsourcing, Journal of Education for Business, 84:2, 118-125, DOI:
10.3200/JOEB.84.2.118-125
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.3200/JOEB.84.2.118-125
Published online: 07 Aug 2010.
Submit your article to this journal
Article views: 40
View related articles
Citing articles: 6 View citing articles
Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at
http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=vjeb20
Download by: [Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji]
Date: 11 January 2016, At: 22:47
Downloaded by [Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji] at 22:47 11 January 2016
Students’PerceptionofISAcademic
Programs,ISCareers,andOutsourcing
BENMARTZ
TEUTACATA
NORTHERNKENTUCKYUNIVERSITY
HIGHLANDHEIGHTS,KENTUCKY
ABSTRACT. Theauthorscomparedthe
perceptionsofinformationsystems(IS)studentswiththoseofISpractitionersregardingIScareers,thepracticeofoutsourcing,
andacademicprograms.Resultsindicate
thatstudentsandpractitionersappreciatetheintegrationofreal-lifepracticein
academicprogramsandthatthegeneral
perceptionofIScareersisneutralbysex.
However,studentandpractitionerperceptionsdifferaboutoutsourcing,fundamental
jobskills,andIS-specificskills.
Keywords:ISacademicprograms,IS
careers,outsourcingperceptions
Copyright©2008HeldrefPublications
118
JournalofEducationforBusiness
M
anyoftoday’shigh-techcompanieshaveusedoutsourcingorits
sister activity offshoring (outsourcing
beyondgeographicborders)ascost-cutting measures. Stefancic (2004) asserted, “In its simplest form, outsourcing
involves the use of resources outside
of the organization to perform routine
tasks” (p. 11). However phrased, outsourcing and offshoring have reached
a significant level of importance for
the general economy and the job categories and careers in the information
systems (IS) industry. The justification
andresultsoftheseactivitiesvary.
Someresearchershavesuggestedthat
there is no aggregate lowering of U.S.
production (Garner, 2004) or that outsourcingisanormalevolutionofbusiness practices (Bhaggwati, Panagariya,
& Srinivasan, 2004). One study conducted by the Information Technology
AssociationofAmerica(2005)suggestedthatoffshoreoutsourcinghasapositiveaffectonthecountry’seconomyby
ultimately lowering production costs
for IT vendors, in turn lowering the
product costs for consumers. Brainard
andLitan(2004)pointedout,“Offshoring is closely related to technological
advance: both offshoring and technologicaladvancesaredrivenbycompetitive pressures to reduce costs and both
resultindisplacementofexistingjobs”
(p. 2). Other researchers have looked
at outsourcing from the perspective of
service activities (Kraemer & Dedrick,
2004), strategic benefit (Tapper, 2005),
outsourcingsuccess(Lee&Kim,1999),
costsavings(Stefanic,2004),andcompanyagility(Teece,2000).
However, outsourcing and offshoring have created several unintended
consequences, such as resistance from
employeesandcustomerdissatisfaction
with the outsourced activities (Aron &
Singh, 2005). One such consequence
that Arabe (2005) pointed out is the
higher impact of planning and project
management skills. Her summary of
several recent analyses of outsourcing
problemsshowedthatcompaniesdonot
yetfactorintheimplicitcostsofshoddy
projectmanagement,poorcommunication, and misguided transition plans.
Even the ethicality of outsourcing has
beenraisedinrelationtosocialresponsibility (Harrison & Kren, 2004). As
Haskett,Sasser,andSchlesinger(1997)
pointedout,thecostsofacquiringaservice may, in some cases, outweigh the
price.Intheend,ifoverallcostsavings
cannot be achieved, companies usually
do not find enough value in offshoring
(Barthelemy,2001).
In the end though, regardless of the
aggregate impact, economic pressures
mount on companies at the local level
toreducecosts.Thenegativesentiment
grows toward those IT companies that
outsource,similartothereactiontoJapanesecarsduringthe1980s(Sharma&
Yamamoto, 2004). This negative sentiment spills over into the perception of
the IT and IS industry as a whole and
astudent’sperceptionofacareerinIT
andIS(Bruce&Martz,2007).
Downloaded by [Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji] at 22:47 11 January 2016
PerceptionAboutISCareers
There has been a continuous discussion in academia about the diversity
inherentinIScareerdevelopment(Gallivan, Truex, & Kvasny, 2004; Lee,
Koh,Yen, & Tang, 2002; Trauth, Farwell,&Lee,1993).Trauthetal.stated
that the “IS profession is being pulled
in opposite directions. One is toward
more human and business orientation.
Theotheristowardthetechnicalskills
requiredtomaintainafirm’stechnology
infrastructure.Theresultisaknowledge
explosion”(p.300).
Researchers in IS have identified
many issues related to skills that an
ISprofessionalmusthave.Themapof
issuesisshapedbywhatskillsthecompanies need, the skills that end-users
need, the skills that are advertised by
companiesintheirjobads,andtheskills
that IS academics think are necessary.
Ingeneral,ISprofessionalsarerequired
tohavenotonlytechnicalskillsbutalso
nontechnicalskills.Stone(2006)identifiedandcategorizedthenontechnical
skills:communicationskills(beableto
communicate the technical content in
written and oral presentations); businessskills(e.g.,knowledgeinmarketing, finance); and management skills
(e.g., people management, teamwork,
human resource management, leadership, etc.). The lack of business skills
hasanegativeimpactonpromotionsof
IS personnel to management positions
in a company. Further, McGee (1996)
advised that the main factor contributing to the failure of an IT professionalpromotedtoamanagerposition
is people skills. He found that 40% of
the promoted IT professionals failed
because they were lacking communication and business skills such as the
ability to build alliances or have clear
linesofcommunicationintheteamsin
whichtheyparticipate.
Recent researchers (Gallivan et al.,
2004; Lee, 2005) have investigated the
trendsofhiringISprofessionalsonthe
basisofwhatskillscompanieslistinthe
jobadvertisements.Gallivanetal.concluded that employers have increased
the requirements for technical skills.
Technical skills specified in the job
advertisements had increased by 40%
between1988and2001.
Lee (2005) investigated the career
pathofanISprofessionalfromanother perspective. After Lee determined
whether the majority of positions are
in hardware- or software-related jobs,
hecontinuedbyinvestigatingwhichof
those positions provides a more successfulcareerforanITperson.Results
of his study showed that Fortune 500
companiesrequiremoresoftwareskills
than hardware skills. One important
implicationofthisstudyisthatsystem
analysts’ skills and the skills related
toenterprise-widesystemseasetransitions to higher positions, such as IT
manager, whereas programmers’ skills
arelesssoughtforhighermanagement
positions. The implication is that to
be successful in the IT career path,
employees should be able to understandnotonlyITandISfunctionsbut
alsootherbusinessfunctionsand—perhaps more important—functions that
involveexternalparties,suchassuppliersandcustomers.
Differences between the sexes have
provided another arena for differences
in IT career perceptions. Researchers
haveexploredwhethersexdiscrimination
existsintheISandITcommunity.Contradictoryresultshavebeencollectedand
reported. InformationWeek continuously
indicatesthesalarygapbetweenwomen
and men. According to its 2005 salary
survey(Chabrow&Smith,2005),women
receive approximately $9 for every $10
thatmenearninwagesandbonuses.On
the other hand, Sumner and Niederman
(2004)suggestedthatcareerexperiences,
jobtasks,andjobsatisfactionofwomen
andmenintheITfieldarerelativelysimilar.Theresultsoftheirstudyshowedthat
womenperformthesamejobtasksasdo
men,andwomenshowedahigherlevelof
satisfaction with financial rewards from
theircurrentITjob.
PerceptionsAboutISAcademic
Programs
TheperceptionsofISacademicprograms play an important role in the
continuous debate over what skills an
IS professional needs for a successful
career in IS or IT. To date, research
conducted on this topic has focused
on two main topics: (a) how IS curricula have changed to better address
the real-life need for IS skills and (b)
howISprogramsareadvertisedtomake
prospectivestudentsawareofapossible
careerinIS.
Studies have also been conducted
on understanding what an IS program
should deliver and how IS curricula
shouldchangetobetteraddresspractitionerneeds.Al-ImamyandFarhat(2005)
noticed a perception gap between IS
academicsandISpractitionersonwhat
amanagementinformationsystemsprogram should be. Their results showed
that IS academics focus more on the
fundamental concepts and frameworks,
which help their students in the longterm future to build deep knowledge.
Yet, the IS community expects recent
graduatestoknowcurrenttechnologies
andbeabletosolvebusinessproblems
immediately upon being hired. The IS
community expects recent graduates to
be knowledgeable enough on current
problems and technologies in order to
cuttrainingexpenses.
The implication of the aforementioned findings in practice is twofold.
First, because management and business skills are not highly ranked in an
ITcurriculum(Lee&Reichgelt,2005),
IT graduates from these programs will
have problems succeeding in business
careers. Peslak (2005) noted that IS
majors’ lack of knowledge of business
conceptsnegativelyaffectedtheirprogress in understanding how software
worksinthebusinesscontext.TheconcernisthatISstudentslackthebusiness
knowledgerelatedtobusinessprocesses
used to work across traditional functional areas such as finance, marketing,production,andaccounting.Future
employers consider such nontechnical,
process-related skills to be important
andevenrankthemhigherthantechnicalskills(Cappal,2001/2002).
ThesecondproblemwiththeperceptionofISacademicprogramsisrelated
tohowISprogramsareadvertisedand
the students’ level of awareness of the
potential of a career in IS. A survey
of IS majors and nonmajors revealed
November/December2008
119
that nonmajor students are not well
informedaboutthejobs,tasks,salaries,
jobenvironments,andjobreputationsof
anISprofession(Berry,2006).Theydid
not recognize the difference between a
computerscienceprofessionalandanIS
professional.
Downloaded by [Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji] at 22:47 11 January 2016
METHOD
Inthepresentstudy,wesurveyedstudents and IS professionals in the MidwesternUnitedStatestostudyrelations
among their perceptions about IS academicprograms,careers,andoutsourcing.Thefocusofthestudywasonthe
followingbroadquestion:
Doperceptionsofthepracticeofoutsourcing, the necessary characteristics
of IS careers, and the requirements for
theISacademicprogramdifferbetween
studentsandprofessionals?
StudyandParticipants
This study used a survey questionnairetoobtaininsightsonpractitioners’
andstudents’perceptionsconcerningIS
academicprograms,IScareers,andIS
outsourcing.ThequestionnairewasdistributedtoseniorISstudents,members
oftheadvisoryboardofanISprogram,
and IS professionals in the Midwest.
ThestudytookplaceduringNovember
and December 2006. During those 2
months, data were collected from 169
students majoring or minoring in IS.
We collected 51 questionnaires from
members of IS curriculum advisory
boards and other IS practitioners in
theMidwest.
Analysis of demographic data about
thepractitionerparticipantsshowed(a)
a range of professional experience in
ISfrom2to52years,withanaverage
of 12.96 years (SD = 9.12 years); (b)
43.6% of participants were engaged in
thepublicsector,and32.7%ofparticipantswereengagedintheprivatesector;
and (c) 29.4% of practitioner participantsheldagraduatedegreeinIS,and
58.8%ofpractitionerparticipantshelda
bachelor’sdegreeinIS.
Students who participated were
enrolledingraduateandundergraduate
IS classes at a Midwestern university;
78.6% of them were graduates, and
21.4% of them were undergraduates.
120
JournalofEducationforBusiness
Students were asked if they had reallifeexperienceasISemployeesandfor
thelengthofthatexperience.Ofthem,
58% indicated that they have never
workedinanyIS-relatedjobpositions.
The remaining 42% were currently
workingasISemployees,witharange
from 1 to 20 years and an average of
2.1 years of such work experience.
The majority of student participants
(65.5%)weremen.
SurveyInstrument
The questionnaire that we used had
three parts (see Appendix). The first
part of the questionnaire contained
questions constructed with a 5-point
Likert-typescalerangingfrom1(low)
to 5 (high), asking participants to rate
their level of agreement on 23 questions related to perceptions of IS outsourcing, IS career, and IS academic
program.Thesecondpartofthequestionnaireaskedparticipantstoratethe
level of importance of having general
skillsandIT-andIS-relatedskills.The
participants rated the importance of
both groups of skills in two different
timeperiods:NowandIn3years.The
lastpartofthequestionnairecontained
demographic questions that varied on
the basis of the two groups of participants: student and practitioner demographic questions. The questionnaire
was previewed for clarity by two IT
professionals and three IS students.
Theircommentsandsuggestionswere
considered for the final version of the
surveyquestionnaire.
RESULTSANDDISCUSSION
SPSSVersion14.0wasusedtogather the descriptive statistics. As Siegel
(1956) indicated, we used the MannWhitneytesttoidentifythesignificant
differences that participants reported.
Table 1 indicates the areas showing a
significant(p