Americas Conference on Information Systems AMCIS 2011 Detroit

Cultural studies have played an important role in information systems (IS) research for over 25 years. Past IS studies have primarily focused on two levels of analysis: national culture and organizational culture. The gap in our knowledge of culture is in the area of occupational culture of IT professionals. IT professionals have their own distinct occupational culture with their own set of shared values. The 'strong program' of cultural sociology will be used to examine and interpret the meaning of the core shared values of the IT occupation. The cultural framework of shared language, shared history, and shared context will be utilized in this research-in-progress.