Houston, we've had a problem ... ... offshoring, IS employment and the IS discipline: perception is not reality

We believe that the information system (IS) discipline has a major and urgent problem to contend with: the general public appears to believe that there are 'no jobs in IS' because of offshoring. They see the offshoring of IS jobs as an inevitable consequence of economic and competitive pressures to drive down labor costs, which leads them to conclude that there is no future in IS. In particular, the discipline is suffering from the erosion of its student base and in this article we explore some of the reasons as to why this is occurring; focussing specifically on the role offshoring may be playing on the perception that there are no jobs in IS. Despite fairly robust figures showing that there are virtually as many IS jobs now as ever before, the public's perception appears to be at odds with this. We thus examine where these beliefs may have come from and in our stakeholder action plan we suggest some radical solutions to align perception with reality. Journal of Information Technology (2010) 25, 358-372. doi:10.1057/jit.2010.23 Published online 5 October 2010