Adjei, Michalisin win grant

Assistant Professor Mavis Adjei and Associate Professor Michael Michalisin

Mavis Adjei, assistant professor of marketing and Michael Michalisin, associate professor of management have been awarded a Faculty Seed Grant totaling $14,684 from the SIUC Office of Research Development and Administration. This grant extends research by management doctoral student Andrew Aken and Michalisin. The multi-phase research project entitled “What is a Quality Information System Education and Why Do We Care?” is motivated by declining enrollment across universities in technology-oriented fields (e.g., Management Information Systems, Information Systems Technologies, Computer Science), despite projections of growing demand in these fields. 

The study focuses on the linkages between the type and importance of different skills identified by corporate managers with the decision processes driving graduating high school senior's choice of a post-secondary school and choice of academic major. As such, part of the study will analyze the antecedents and dynamics underlying student decision processes to determine: (1) student perception about what constitutes a quality technology-based post-secondary education, (2) the degree to which that decision is moderated by the location and cost of attending a particular university and (3) how anticipated employment opportunities upon graduation affect their perception of the quality of education of a particular university.

The study will also investigate the perceived quality of Information Systems-Based Programs (IS) from an industry perspective. Continuing prior research, the researchers will forge new relationships with industry leaders to identify the degree to which IS graduates lack requisite soft skills, business skills, technical skills, and programming skills (labeled the “skills gap”), as well the importance of each skill. The interviews with managers at leading technology based firms will be also directed at identifying other important recruiting criteria.

This research has important implications to post-secondary institutions seeking to identify their skill gaps, understanding the importance of each skill to corporate recruiters and making the requisite changes to their curricula. Universities that strategically restructure their curricula to reduce existing skill gaps, work closely with industry leaders in identifying new skill sets as the business landscape changes and incorporate other key attributes sought by industry leaders will attract more U.S. based recruiters and, in turn, attract more high school students in their technology-based programs than less proactive universities. The results of this research program will also have important implications for theorists, empiricists, practitioners and policy makers.