AN EMPIRICAL-ANALYSIS OF THE ORGANIZATIONAL COMMITMENT OF INFORMATION-SYSTEMS EXECUTIVES

Information systems (TS), in recent times, have moved away from their traditional role as back office support to a new role in which they ar e recognized as key organizational resources. This new role, and the i ntroduction of new technologies, have led to new ways for organization s to restructure and manage their IS function. These changes have cons iderably altered the IS executive's work environment, creating the pot ential to significantly impact on the executive's commitment to, and m otivation to stay with, the organization. IS professionals have histor ically displayed a very high rate of turnover. While prior research ha s established a theoretical, causal link between individual/job/organi zational characteristics, commitment and personnel turnover, empirical studies in the IS area have focused only on individual and job charac teristics as antecedents of organizational commitment. The present stu dy extends this line of research to explore the significance of organi zational variables as antecedents to commitment. Discriminant analysis is used to analyze the empirical data from a questionnaire survey of IS executives. Implications of the results for organizations are discu ssed. (C) 1998 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.