Psychological contract in the information systems profession

Abstract

The past decade has ushered in challenging events for the IS profession such as economic instabilities, outsourcing/offshoring IS projects, and cloud computing. These eventualities present a stressful environment for emerging and tenured IS professionals. Firms are typically pressured to reduce costs by reducing IS staff only to revisit rehiring the same IS professionals. We investigated the phenomenon of IS professional career commitment to the IS profession using psychological contract theory (PCT) and affective events theory (AET). We present a model that examines the psychological contract in the IS profession (PCP), psychological contract breach in the profession (PCBP) and psychological contract violation in the profession (PCVP). We interviewed twenty-six IS professionals having experienced negative attributions in the IS profession where they reassessed their commitment to the profession (turnover intention) or left the field (turnover). Our results show that all interviewees remained in the field, suggesting the amount of negative conditions in the IS profession may be less significant to turnover. A deeper analysis of the qualitative data indicates that certain elements contribute to interest and commitment to the IS profession such as positive learning opportunities, challenges, and flexibility, such as profession specificity (programmer, CIO, analyst, and database administration). The vastness of the IS profession enables IS professionals to enter another capacity and still experience challenges and accomplishment. We present our implications of the results from a theoretical and practical position.