Information & Management 40 (2003) 361369

Perceived career incentives and intent to leave

Maxwell K. Hsua,*, James J. Jiangb,1, Gary Kleinc,2, Zaiyoung Tangd,3
a

Department of Marketing, College of Business and Economics, University of Wisconsin, 800 West Main Street,
Whitewater, WI 53190-1790, USA
b
Department of Management Information Systems, University of Central Florida,
P.O. Box 161400, Orlando, FL 32816-1400, USA
c
College of Business and Administration, University of Colorado at Colorado Springs,
1420 Austin Bluffs Parkway, Colorado Springs, CO 80933-7150, USA
d
Department of Computer Information Systems, College of Administration and Business,
Louisiana Tech University, Ruston, LA 71272, USA
Accepted 9 February 2002

Abstract
Turnover is a major concern of human resource (HR) managers working with information systems (IS) personnel. Aspects of
career incentives, as perceived by the IS employees, are important in their decisions to leave or stay with the organization. We
utilize a framework of various job anchors to examine how a sample of IS personnel regard incentives provided by employers
and the importance of these in assessing the employees intent to leave. Job security and a service incentive are most important in
reducing this intent. Organizations must address their ability to provide such incentives in order to retain their IS employees.
# 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: IS personnel; Turnover; Career anchors; Job incentives

1. Introduction
In the information systems (IS) field, hiring, training, and keeping good employees is important in
gaining and retaining competitive advantage. It is a
challenge for human resource (HR) professionals to
*
Corresponding author. Present address: College of Business,
Tennessee State University, 330 10th Avenue North, K-34,
Nashville, TN 37203, USA. Tel.: 1-615-963-7132;
fax: 1-615-309-8239.
E-mail addresses: mhsu@tnstate.edu (M.K. Hsu),
james.jiang@bus.ucf.edu (J.J. Jiang), gklein@computer.org
(G. Klein), ztang@cab.latech.edu (Z. Tang).
1
Tel.: 1-407-823-3174; fax: 1-407-823-2389.
2
Tel.: 1-719-262-3157; fax: 1-719-262-3494.
3
Fax: 1-318-257-4253.

recruit and retain skilled IS personnel [28]. The HR

difficulties arise due to a skilled labor shortage [31,35]
and a high rate of employee turnover in the field
[5,18]. The turnover also leads to high costs for an
organization, starting prior to separation, through
lower productivity of the employee intending to leave
and continuing difficulties after actual separation.
IS HR managers have tried numerous approaches
to reduce the turnover rate. They generally focus on
methods related to pay structure, including higher
than average salaries and staying bonuses ranging, in
the USA, from US$ 10,000 to 30,000. Certainly,
some IS employees may leave for better money,
but the monetary-focused incentives may not be
the only, nor the most effective, approach to retaining
desired IS personnel, who generally view money as

0378-7206/02/$ see front matter # 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
PII: S 0 3 7 8 - 7 2 0 6 ( 0 2 ) 0 0 0 1 8 - 6

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M.K. Hsu et al. / Information & Management 40 (2003) 361369

an indicator of their achievements, rather than

an end in itself [3]. Though pay and employee
benefits are two of the most important factors in a
job offer, other incentives include job location, job
security, balance with personal/family time, potential
for job advancement, and work-based challenges
[26]. Thus, it seems plausible to further reduce IS
employee turnover rate by first understanding the
individuals views of career development and associated incentives.
Previous studies of turnover attempted to identify
causes or antecedents of turnover from such sources
as role stress, job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and work family conflict [9,16]. More
recently, IS researchers turned their attention to
the concept of career anchors [22,23]. Career
anchors are categories of fundamental properties
or needs that employees seek in their careers. The
concept of career anchors can further be categorized
as internal and external. Internal career anchors refer
to an individuals self-concept, the psychological
attractions that serve to guide his or her career.
These are realized in terms of non-salaried incentives, such as job security, location, and autonomy in
the workplace. Once established, people are reluctant to change their anchors even if other opportunities arise that may be rewarding on other anchors.
External career anchors refer to the same set of
anchors, but more on the extent that individuals
perceive that the organization currently satisfies
the internal anchors through benefits and incentives.
To keep the concept of internal and external structure
separate, we refer to the internal focus as career
anchors, but to the perceptions of the employee on
how well their internal career anchors are satisfied as
external career incentives, or simply incentives.
The career anchor model has been applied to many
professional fields. IS researchers have found that
various internal career anchors exist among IS personnel and have studied their impact on career satisfaction [10,21]. Although a large number of previous
studies have examined the internal career anchors,
there are a limited number of studies investigating the
relationship between an employees perceived external career incentives and job-related outcomes. Interestingly, IS employees whose internal career anchors
were compatible with their job reported having a lower
intention to leave their organizations. Additionally,

perceived incentives play a significant positive role on

IS employees career satisfaction.
The purpose of this study is to examine the perceived external career incentives and the associated
impact on IS personnels intent to leave. Specifically,
the following two questions were examined: (1) Are
the various external career incentives perceived
equally by IS personnel? In other words, do organizations provide equal incentives to match a variety of
career anchors in the view of the IS personnel? (2)
Which career incentives are stronger predictive factors
for IS personnels intent to leave?
Since employee turnover increases replacement
costs and may hinder organizational learning, we
identified the factors that may reduce IS employees
intent to quit. The strength and significance of relationships involving job-related attitudes could have
been established by considering perceived career
incentives as important antecedents to leaving or
staying. Uncovering main determinants of IS personnels intent to leave could help reduce turnover.

2. Background and research hypotheses

Employee turnover has been studied in both management and behavioral research [4]. Mak and Sockel
suggested that employee turnover must be well managed in order to reduce the likelihood of losing valuable IS employees. One way to improve employee
retention is through a lower rate of intent to leave
ones behavioral intention to quit. The causal relationship between this and actual turnover is well established in the management literature and the underlying
premise is that behavior intent is a practical proxy of
actual behavior. Indeed, current theory and empirical
research on turnover suggest the direct antecedent of
actual turnover is intention or propensity to leave
[25]. As a result, lowering employees intent to leave
could reduce actual separation.
In order to determine how to reduce IS employees
intent to leave, IS researchers have examined the
concept of the internal career anchors and their
impacts on IS personnels career decisions [14]. For
the construct of internal career anchors, IS researchers
have used variations of Scheins [33] career orientation measures. More recently, Igbaria and Baroudi
developed a short-form measure of internal anchor

M.K. Hsu et al. / Information & Management 40 (2003) 361369

measurement for IS personnel [20]. These internal

career anchors of an individual include:
 lifestylewanting to develop a lifestyle that integrates family and career concerns;
 job securityseeking company loyalty, long-term
employment, and financial security;
 geographic securitylinking to a particular area on
a long-term basis;
 managerialpursuing greater responsibility for
accomplishing results through others;
 technicalfocusing primarily on the exercise of
technical expertise;
 entrepreneurshipneeding to create something on
ones own by developing a new product or service,
or by building a new business enterprise;
 autonomylooking for situations in which he or she
will be free of organizational constraints and control;
 challengeseeking to solve problems, overcome
obstacles and win against capable opponents;
 servicededicating ones self to helping others and
contribute to causes.
These anchors are of crucial importance in understanding employees career aspirations. However, studies found that they play a marginal role in
determining IS personnel satisfaction. For instance,
Igbaria and Baroudi stated that, even though positive
correlations exist between internal career anchors and
career satisfaction, these relationships are quite
small and probably have little practical significance.
It is our contention that firms should also examine the
degree to which the organization itself provides external career incentives that relate to career anchors. By
so doing, firms can monitor employees incentives and
provide at least satisfactory career opportunities.
Ginzberg and Baroudi suggested that the match
between IS personnels internal career anchors and
perceived incentives determines an individuals career
satisfaction or intent to leave [13].
Evidence has shown that many companies adopt the
so-called dual-career ladders or tracks, where employees involved in scientific type of work may consider not
only technical but also a managerial path. Igbaria et al.
[21] found that managerial and technical anchors are
dominant anchors among the various aspects of career
anchors among IS personnel. Crepeau et al. [10] also
found that technical and managerial dual-career path
plays a significant role in IS personnel career planning.

363

As a matter of fact, the technical and managerial dualcareer ladder has been the common practice for
employers to attract, retain, and motivate employees
[7,15]. More recently, Cole-Gomolski suggested that
the practice of dual-career paths in information technology departments is enabling companies to build
more efficient IT groups [8]. Since organizations are
said to have provided the dual-career ladder for IS
personnel, it would be interesting to examine whether
companies are providing what the literature says.
Because of this, we propose the following hypothesis.
H1. It is perceived by IS personnel that organizations
provide higher levels of technical and managerial
career incentives than other external career incentives.
Ginzberg and Baroudi argued that internal career
desires must be satisfied and that organizations must
attempt to provide work conditions to match underlying
internal career anchors. Echoing Ginzberg and Baroudis study, Igbaria et al. [21] examined aspects of the
internal career anchors of MIS personnel and found that
employees whose career anchors were compatible
with their job setting reported . . . low intentions to
leave their organization. A lack of employee-job fit
may lead to anxiety, strain, job dissatisfaction, turnover,
or other negative outcome [6,11,17].
Van Maanen and Schein [34] pointed out that both
internal career anchors and organizational career
incentives influence career satisfaction. That is, in
order to retain an employee who is happy to work
in the organization, favorably perceived career incentives are at least as important as the well-studied
internal career anchors. Past research indicated that
IS professional are more satisfied with their career
when they feel that an adequate range of career
opportunities exist within the organization. Motivation theory maintains that employees who work in a
rewarding environment that match their needs find
reasons that justify the work effort to themselves, their
peers, and their families [19]. Thus, an individual will
be most motivated by being given what is desired. In
addition, closely related to the employee turnover, is
Maslows hierarchy of needs [29], in which five
hierarchical needs are identified: physiological, safety,
social, esteem, and self-actualization. If the unmet
need is strong and could be satisfied by changing jobs,
the employee may quit and switch to the company

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M.K. Hsu et al. / Information & Management 40 (2003) 361369

with a better career alternative. To that end, it is

interesting to examine whether organizations are perceived to provide the career incentives in alignment
with the needs of the employees that lead to a lower
intent to leave.
H2. Organizations deliver those incentives that most
lower their IS professionals intent to leave.

3. Methodology
3.1. Sample
Questionnaires were mailed to 500 randomly
selected IS professionals from the roster of the American Institute for Technology Professionals (AITP) in
the United States. We used a version of the wellestablished career orientation scale to develop our
questionnaire. Still, the responses were submitted to
rigorous validation described later in the measurement
section. AITP members represent a wide variety of
organizational settings and have been subjects in other
IS personnel management research [2,24]. Selfaddressed, stamped return envelopes for each questionnaire were provided to the subjects. All respondents were assured confidentiality of their responses.
A total of 98 questionnaires were returned in the first
round for a response rate of approximately 20%.
The same questionnaires were mailed to those who
did not respond in the first round to attempt to increase
the sample size. An additional 55 responses were
received for an overall response rate of 31%. Chisquare tests were employed to examine differences in
demographic background (e.g. gender, age, work
experience, position) between those who responded
earlier and later. No significant difference was found
between the two groups, so they were combined for
further data analysis. Table 1 presents the general
demographics of the respondents.
3.2. Measurements
3.2.1. Intent to leave
Intent to leave was measured by the three-item scale
of Mobley et al. [32]. I think a lot about leaving this
organization; I am actively searching for an acceptable

Table 1
Sample demographics
Position
Top management
Manager/project leader
Programmer/system analysts
Technical support staff

3
90
44
12

Years in current organization

15 years
610 years
1115 years
1620 years
2125 years
26 or more

66
27
23
19
10
5

Years of working experience

15 years
610 years
1115 years
1620 years
2125 years
26 or more

10
9
19
32
29
51

Gender
Female
Male

39
112

Age
2530
3135
3640
4145
4650
5155
5660
61 and over

4
7
12
22
22
55
20
9

Education
Graduate
Bachelor
Associate degree
High school

56
63
28
4

alternative to this organization; and when I can, I will

leave the organization. Respondents were asked to
indicate their opinion with each statement on a fivepoint Likert-type scale with 1 strongly disagree to
5 strongly agree. The Cronbachs a for the intent to
leave measure was 0.86, displaying good internal consistency. Responses to the respective items were averaged to create the proxy for the intent to leave construct.
3.2.2. Career incentives
The instrument used to measure IS personnels
perceived career incentives was adopted from that

M.K. Hsu et al. / Information & Management 40 (2003) 361369

365

Table 2
Set of items measuring perceived career incentives
Item number

My current position permits me to experience

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25

The process of supervising, influencing, leading, and controlling people at all levels
The chance to do things my own way and not to be constrained by the rules of an organization
An employer who will provide security through guaranteed work, benefits, a good retirement program, etc.
Working on problems that are almost insoluble
Remaining in my specialized area as opposed to being promoted out of my area of expertise
To be in charge of a whole organization
A career that is free from organization restrictions
An organization that will give me long-run stability
Using my skills to make the world a better place to live and work
Developing a career that permits to continue to pursue my own lifestyle
Building a new business enterprise
Remaining in my area of expertise throughout my career
A rise to a high position in general management
Remaining in one geographical area rather than moving because of a promotion
Being able to use my skills and talents in the service of an important cause
The only real challenge in my career, which has been confronting and solving tough problems, no matter what area they were
Being on the lookout for ideas that would permit me to start and build my own enterprise
Remaining in my present geographical location rather than receiving a promotion or new job assignment in another location
A career that enables me to lead my life in my own way
A management position only if it is in my area of expertise
Being constrained by either an organization or the business world
A career in which I can be committed and devoted to an important cause
Success by being constantly challenged by a tough problem or a competitive situation
Choosing and maintaining a certain lifestyle, which is more important than career success
Building a business of my own

in Igbaria and Baroudis study. Only minor adjustments were made to extract the perceptions of the
external career incentives as opposed to the internal
anchors. The career incentives scale includes 25 items,
shown in Table 2. Individuals were asked to indicate
their opinion on what their career delivers relative to
each of the 25-item statements using a five-point
Likert-type scale, where 1 strongly disagree,
3 neutral, and 5 strongly agree.
A confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was undertaken to assess the convergent and discriminant validity of the career incentives construct. Empirically,
convergent validity (i.e. the degree of association
between measures of a construct) was assessed by
reviewing the t-tests for the factor loadings. In terms of
the parameter estimates (factor loadings), the loading
items for each factor were set exactly as suggested by
Igbaria and Baroudi. The criteria value used to identify
a given loading item is 0.45 or higher. In fact, except
for item 2 with a loading of 0.49 and item 20 with a
loading of 0.46, the remaining items all have a loading

higher than 0.59 with the highest being 0.92. The fact
that all t-tests are statistically significant (see Table 3)
showed that all indicator variables provide good measures to their respective construct [1]. These results
generally supported the convergent validity of the
model.
The discriminant validity (i.e. the degree to which
items of constructs are distinct) was empirically
assessed by using the variance-extracted test. Discriminant validity is said to be satisfied if the variance
shared between measures of two different constructs
(the squared correlation) is less than the amount of
variance extracted by the items measuring each construct. Empirical results (see Table 4) indicated that
the discriminant validity is achieved in this study.
To assess the overall measurement model, we
reviewed a number of CFA goodness-of-fit indices.
Specifically, the measurement model was found to
have a root-mean-square error (RMSR) of 0.07, a
normed comparative fit index (CFI) of 0.92, a goodness-of-fit index (GFI) of 0.85, a non-normed index

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M.K. Hsu et al. / Information & Management 40 (2003) 361369

Table 3
Properties of the measurement model: perceived career incentives
Construct
and indicators
Entrepreneurship
11
17
25
Service
9
15
22
Lifestyle
10
19
24
Managerial
1
6
13
Autonomy
2
7
21
Pure challenge
4
16
23
Technical
5
12
20
Geographic security
14
18
Job security
3
8

Standardized
loading

t-Statistics

0.85
0.79
0.75

11.59
11.49
9.64

0.77
0.85
0.70

10.04
11.74
8.96

0.81
0.80
0.69

10.70
10.49
8.65

0.61
0.75
0.82

7.20
9.50
10.76

0.49
0.63
0.62

5.51
7.31
7.18

0.63
0.81
0.64

7.60
11.33
7.68

0.59
0.78
0.46

6.80
9.36
5.12

0.66
0.72

10.57
8.25

0.66
0.92

7.96
11.36

(NNFI) of 0.90 and a Chi-square/degree of freedom

value of 1.46. Together, these indices indicated an
acceptable fit.

Composite
reliability
0.84

4. Empirical results
In examining H1, we compared the means on the
nine perceived external career incentives perceived by
IS personnel. The means of the nine perceived career
incentives are shown in Table 4. Statistical analysis
indicated that geographic and job security are significantly (P 0:01) higher than other perceived career
incentives and these results do not lend support to H1.
Organizations appear not to follow the expectation
that they are providing high levels of career opportunities in terms of managerial and technical incentives.
In examining H2, we employed a multiple regression model relating the nine identified factors with the
intent to leave variable. Table 4 again presents descriptive statistics and correlations between the external
career incentives and the intent to leave construct and
Table 5 shows the regression results. At the 0.05
significance level, intent to leave was found to be
negatively associated with both job security and the
service incentive. Our findings suggested that, in
general, IS personnel whose jobs have a higher level
of job security and service incentive are less likely to
leave. Job security was one of the top two perceived
external career incentives, indicating a partial support
for H2. In addition, the service incentive ranked third
in perceived incentives.

0.82

0.81

0.77

0.61

0.74

0.65

0.64

0.78

Note: number refers to Table 2.

Table 4
Means and intercorrelations among perceived career incentives
Mean S.D.

Perceived career incentives

Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship
Service
Lifestyle
Managerial
Autonomy
Pure challenge
Technical
Geographic security
Job security

2.31
3.30
3.03
3.09
2.74
3.11
3.12
3.63a
3.67a

1.09
0.92
0.82
0.95
0.86
0.80
0.79
1.00
0.91

0.84
0.80
0.79
0.77
0.62
0.74
0.59
0.66
0.75

0.63
0.37
0.44
0.53
0.50
0.40
0.31
0.15
0.23

Service

Lifestyle

0.60
0.56
0.48
0.33
0.55
0.45
0.46
0.51

0.59
0.12
0.37
0.50
0.45
0.49
0.41

Managerial Autonomy Pure

Technical
challenge

Geographic
security

Job
security

0.53
0.37
0.42
0.44
0.19
0.38

0.47
0.46

0.64

0.34
0.46
0.43
0.26
0.30

0.48
0.41
0.43
0.42

0.39
0.38
0.33

Note: the diagonals represent the total amount of variance explained, while the other matrix entities represent the intercorrelations.
a
Statistically significant higher than all other perceived career incentives at the 0.05 level.

M.K. Hsu et al. / Information & Management 40 (2003) 361369

Table 5
Regression results of the perceived career incentives and intent to
leave
Career anchors

Regression coefficient

Entrepreneurship
Service
Lifestyle
Managerial
Autonomy
Pure challenge
Technical
Geographic security
Job security

0.09
0.28a
0.13
0.04
0.03
0.09
0.16
0.04
0.21a

Intent to leave: mean 2.14; S.D. 1.01; a 0.86.

a
Statistically significant at the 0.05 level.

The results indicated that organizations seem to

have focused on at least one of the important traits
in terms of avoiding an employees intent to leave. It
should be noted, however, that even though the organizations were perceived as delivering the two most
important indicators to a degree higher than most of
the career incentives, the average ratings of the perception was quite low. In fact, the means of the
perceived incentives never reached the somewhat
agree level and usually fell about the neutral level.
The inability of the organizations to deliver the desired
incentives to avoid turnover seems problematic, perhaps overshadowing the fact that they are perceived to
deliver the incentives important in the decision to stay
more so than other incentives.

5. Discussion
Instead of the commonly touted and documented
managerial and technical career incentives, IS companies are perceived as providing better geographic
security and job security in our sample of IS employees. We related the career incentives to IS employees
intent to leave because it is crucial for IS managers to
recognize the most influential catalysts that may retain
valued employees. The incidence of employee turnover increases personnel costs and may cause problems even after an equally qualified employee has
been found, e.g. the new employee may slow organizational learning by making mistakes. Even more
serious is the loss of competitive position as the

367

companys competitors gain insight by hiring the

separated employees.
Despite the importance of this issue for strategic IS
HR management, the results of research to date do not
provide clear guidance on how to reduce IS employees turnover by examining how much the firm has
offered in satisfying employees career desires. The
present study begins to fill this void. Igbaria and
Baroudis hypothesis that scores on the measures of
career satisfaction vary positively with job security
and service incentive was not supported in their study.
On the other hand, our empirical results indicated that
organizations have correctly identified the incentives
the employees want. Though organizations provide
both geographic and job security to a high extent,
geographic security was not able to lower IS personnels intent to leave. Despite the fact that the IS labor
market was tight when the survey instruments were
administered, our empirical results indicated the
importance of job security, consistent with Lious
[27] empirical finding that detention case workers
turnover intention was negatively correlated with the
perceived job security. Gaertner and Nollen [12] also
found a negative relationship between turnover tendency and job security. This appears to reflect the
notion that some employees will stay despite belowmarket pay if their company adheres to a history of
providing safe, stable work and perhaps a set of
perquisites like a 4-day workweek and reserved parking [36].
Moreover, findings indicated that the higher the
service incentive, the lower the intent to leave. In
fact, in healthcare IS research, service incentive is
suggested to be cultivated within the organization
by the chief information officer, who must present a
service-oriented attitude for the IS employees to
follow [30]. It appears that meeting IS employees
career desires in terms of the service incentive would
be mutually beneficialboth for the firms and the
employees. Compensation specialists need to
demonstrate an extensive understanding of IS
employees perceived career incentives and develop
a concurrent and flexible program in motivating and
rewarding them. Recognizing these, employers
should pay special attention to the alignment of
career anchors and incentives, especially job security and service incentive, to maintain and restore
employee stability.

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M.K. Hsu et al. / Information & Management 40 (2003) 361369

In order to lower IS personnel turnover intention, IS

HR managers should start communicating at the
recruitment stage. For example, IS HR mangers
should inform new hires of the advantages and potential shortcomings of their possible career paths within
the firm. On a regular basis, firms need to survey
employee attitudes about their career incentives and
take advantage of the opportunity to determine their
job attitudes. One considerable advantage of good
communication is to keep expectations of employees
more manageable. In conclusion, this study suggests
that job security and service incentive are negatively
associated with variance in IS employees turnover
intention. Still, the empirical evidences on the alignment of individuals internal anchors and external
incentives on ones career decisions appears to be
lacking.

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Maxwell K. Hsu is an Assistant Professor of marketing at the University of
Wisconsin, Whitewater. He received his
DBA in marketing from Louisiana
Tech University in 1999. His articles
appear in Applied Economics Letters,
International Journal of Advertising,
International Journal of Business and
Economics, Studies in Economics &
Finance, Human System Management,
and other journals. He has won three best
paper awards in regional, national, and international conferences.
Currently, he is working on research projects related to information
technology management, international diffusion of innovations,
and service quality. He is a member of AMA, ACME, SMA, and
NAF.
James J. Jiang is a Professor of
management information systems at the
University of Central Florida. He obtained his PhD in information systems at
the University of Cincinnati. His research interests include IS project management and IS personnel management.

369

He has published over 80 referred papers in the journals such as

IEEE transactions on System, Man, and Cybernetics, Decision
Support Systems, IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management,
Decision Sciences, Journal of Management Information Systems
(JMIS), Communications of the ACM (CACM), Information and
Management, Journal of Systems and Software, Data Base, Journal
of Association of Information Systems (JAIS), and Project
Management Journal. He is a member of IEEE, ACM, AIS, and
DSI.
Gary Klein is the Couger Professor of
information systems at the University of
Colorado in Colorado Springs. He obtained his PhD in management science
from Purdue University. Before that
time, he served with Arthur Andersen
in Kansas City and was the Director of
the information systems department for a
regional financial institution. His research interests include project management, system development, and mathematical modeling with over
90 academic publications in these areas. He teaches programming
and knowledge management courses. In additional to being an
active member in international conferences, he has made professional presentations on decision support systems in the US and
Japan, where he once served as a guest professor to Kwansei
Gakuin University. He is a member of IEEE, ACM, the Society of
Competitive Intelligence Professionals, the Decision Science
Institute, and the Project Management Institute.
Zaiyoung Tang is an Assistant Professor
in the Department of Computer Information Systems & Analysis at Louisiana
Tech University. He obtained his PhD in
MIS from the University of Florida; an
MS from Washington State University;
an ME from Chengdu University of
Science and Technology; and a BE from
Chongqing University, PR China. His
research interests include information
technology diffusion, intelligent agents,
neural networks, knowledge management, and agent-based modeling. His work has appeared in INFORMS, Journal on Computing,
Simulation, and Neural Networks.