Determinants of IT Job Occupations: Integrating Career Anchor Theory and Social Cognitive Career Theory

With the burgeoning demand for information technology jobs, it becomes important to understand the factors that predict the actual occupations of information technology professionals. Extant research has focused heavily on career anchor theory as a theoretical lens to explain this phenomenon. However, the empirical results linking career anchors to IT job occupations are inconclusive and the theory has been criticized for having weak predictive power. Drawing upon social cognitive career theory, this research-in-progress suggests that self-efficacy acts as a second determinant of IT job occupations, which enhances predictive power. A conceptual model is developed, which integrates insights from career anchors theory and social cognitive career theory. The model will be tested via a large-scale survey of alumni from two Canadian universities. This research-in-progress aims at improving the discriminatory power for predicting the under-researched phenomenon of IT job occupations. It can also help in better match IT professionals' needs, values, and perceived capabilities to their actual job attainments.