Understanding the personal competencies of IS support experts: moving toward the e-business future

One of the least studied areas of information systems (IS) is software operations support, also known as software maintenance. As organizations move to the e-business economy, software is either being purchased, modified or outsourced. What remains inside the organization is software support and modification, the evaluation of the user business process, assisting users with new or modified requirements, and ongoing platform or technology changes and upgrades. This study identifies and explores the personal competencies required of IS support personnel to succeed in a non-development-oriented environment. Since organizations are evolving to the new economy at different rates, two different types of organizations are examined in this study. The results of this study indicate that the personal competencies of support personnel differ in these two contexts.