Job characteristic preference-reality discrepancies and the job and career attitudes of I/S professionals

Abstract

A post-employment follow up survey of I/S professionals was used to assess the characteristics of the respondents' present jobs and their career and job attitudes. Present job characteristics were compared to the job preferences expressed by the respondents prior to graduation. Significant preference-reality mean score differences were found for 15 of the 20 I/S job characteristics. Each respondent's preferenc-reality job characteristics discrepancy score was calculated and used in a series of multiple regression analyses as the independent variables with their job and career attitudes serving as the dependent variables. The results of the multiple regression analyses support the theoretical construct that attitudes are related to need fulfillment.