Repertory Grid, Laddering, and Content Analysis: a Psychometric Approach to Understand the Information Technology Workforce

Abstract

A major challenge when researching on people relates to how reliable information can be retrieved from them. It is a matter of how to access what is literally inside people's mind. Access is limited by the cognitive screening process that mediates human interaction, as well as by human rhetoric. We apply repertory grid, laddering and content analysis as an integrated psychometric approach to contrast two sets of constructs: a set of theoretically based constructs about the management of information technology professionals who work in customer teams, and a set of constructs that lie behind those professionals' cognition in the particular case of implementing enterprise-wide systems (ERP). Results confirm the effectiveness of such a methodological approach to accurately reveal cognitive phenomena and to better understand the information technology workforce.