Title
Information Technology Wages and the Value of Certifications: A Human Capital Perspective
Abstract
Although the value of Information Technology (IT) certifications has been widely debated in the IT industry, academia has largely ignored the issue. This study intends to bridge such a gap. Anchored on human capital theory and previous literature, we build a comprehensive model to estimate the value of various IT certifications in terms of their contributions to IT professionals' wages. We estimate our model using third-party survey data. The three main findings from the study are: 1) IT certifications are valuable in general; 2) there is a substitution effect between IT certifications and education and between IT certifications and experience; and 3) the value of IT certifications are job and industry specific. In addition, we estimate wage premiums of various IT certifications in the study. From these findings, we draw managerial implications for current and future IT professionals, IT managers, and human resource managers.
Department(s)
Information Technology and Cybersecurity
Document Type
Article
DOI
https://doi.org/10.17705/1cais.01906
Publication Date
2007
Recommended Citation
Quan, Jim J., Ronald Dattero, and Stuart D. Galup. "Information technology wages and the value of certifications: A human capital perspective." Communications of the Association for Information Systems 19, no. 1 (2007): 6.
Journal Title
Communications of the Association for Information Systems
