The Relationship Between Role Variables and Turnover Intentions Among IT Professionals

Results from prior studies have indicated that role ambiguity and role conflict are sometimes directly related to turnover intentions among information technology professionals, but sometimes they are not. The purpose of this research is to provide possible explanations for these discrepant results. This study hypothesized that the relationships between role variables and turnover intentions are moderated by (a) achievement need strength and (b) organizational tenure. These hypotheses were tested using data from a questionnaire survey. The results showed that achievement need strength moderates the relationship between role variables and turnover intentions, and organizational tenure moderates the relationship between role ambiguity and turnover intentions. One implication of these results is that moderating variables may help to clarify inconsistent findings in prior research. Another implication is that employers should take into consideration the effects of moderating variables when designing retention strategies.

Women in Information Technology

IT managers must recruit and retain a skilled and diverse workforce in order to meet the needs of today’s and tomorrow’s increasingly globalized enterprises. The pipeline for women in IT starts small and shrinks as women are disaffected from the profession at all levels of school and career. This chapter surveys the literature concerning the dearth of women and categorizes this literature along dimensions of methodology, variables, and groups studied. Numerous suggestions and guidelines for improving women’s representation have been offered. Recurring themes include lack of self-confidence, lack of pre-college preparation, the need for mentors and role models, the importance of community groups, and the need to value both family and work priorities. Few studies have empirically tested these recommendations, and much work remains to be done in order to understand and address the real issues. Solutions to recruiting and retaining women may serve other under-represented groups as well, making IT classrooms and IT workplaces more congenial and ultimately more productive environments for everyone.

Is There a Retention Gap for Women and Minorities? The Case for Moving In Versus Moving Up

This chapter will examine the “retention gap” between the goals of gender and racial diversity and the workplace/management behaviors that affect retention of individuals in those groups. Women, as well as African Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Native Americans, are represented in the information technology (IT) workforce in percentages that are far lower than their percentages in the population as a whole. These populations are also under-represented in the educational programs that prepare people for careers as IT workers. While recruiting efforts are crucial for increasing the participation of women and minorities, it is equally important that we retain those already in the IT workforce. It is clear that nothing is gained by bringing women and minorities into the workforce to simply have them drop out or be weeded out. There is a need to deepen our understanding of retention issues for women and minorities in order to inform intervention strategies. This chapter addresses this need by providing an in-depth examination of factors affecting attraction, development, and especially retention of minorities and women in IS.

Peopleware

The hiring and retention of IT personnel has remained a top priority for managers given the increasingly important role that information technology plays in the success of virtually all companies today. In this chapter, through a series of case studies, we report on a set of best practices that are designed to help organizations develop strategy, recruit, hire, develop, compensate, and ultimately retain valued IT personnel. In addition, a model is presented that describes the key drivers of job satisfaction, and ultimately determine turnover. It is suggested that the relative importance of these drivers, which include the quality of management, work attributes, compensation, and career development, will change for employees over time. Therefore, managing these drivers using the identified best practices can significantly assist organizations in attracting and retaining IT personnel.

Reluctance to Report Reality in Troubled Technology Projects

The situation of IT project leaders’ reluctance to engage in “reality reporting” is examined within a classic organizational behavior framework: the influence of person vs. situational factors on worker behavior. We review the MIS literature to establish that this project reporting problem has been substantiated and creates problems for organizations. Then we detail the foundation underlying Mischel’s classic argument regarding the type of situations in which person variables tend to be influential, and we extend a useful conceptual framework for IT managers. Viewing this reporting behavior through the lens provided by Mischel leads to recommendations on how managers can make status reporting in troubled IT projects a stronger situation to influence reality reporting behaviors by project leaders.

Offshore Software Development

The quiet emergence of Year 2000 supplementation of IT skill sets has become an increasingly viable alternative for many companies to lower costs and speed implementation. Offshore software development continues to grow. More countries recognize its economic impact and are providing infrastructure to nurture continued expansion. The challenges of the client/developer contract reach beyond coding quality and remote management. The chapter presents the evolution, rationale, and models used for offshore/nearshore software development with an analysis by major countries engaged in the delivery. Best practices and examples of some firms illustrate the critical success factors of these relationships.

Strategies for Managing IS Personnel

In this chapter, we use the IT staffing cycle of forecasting, acquiring, training, and retaining to investigate how companies ensure that their IT staffs possess a skill base adequate to respond effectively to rapidly changing and uncertain technological environments. To better understand the strategies that companies use throughout the IT staffing cycle, we surveyed 30 senior-level managers (i.e., CIOs, IT planners, and Human Resources managers) from 15 companies representing a broad range of organizational environments across five different industries: energy, high-tech, financial, transportation, and distribution. Telephone interview questions were based on a framework that we developed to explain the relationship between IT and organizational planning in IT skills forecasting. The respondents’ answers to these questions clearly demonstrate that the companies in our sample lack formal systems for linking business plans with IT plans for the purpose of forecasting IT skills. Further, our study findings clearly suggest that long-term skill needs are not managed, but are treated as a source of uncertainty. Within the skills acquisition process, strategies appear to be adopted with the intent of reducing uncertainty. In particular, companies often treat the IT group as a self-contained unit that operates separately from Human Resources when acquiring employees with needed IT skills from the external market. Staffing gaps are frequently filled by turning to the external market to find IT specialists with needed skills, or by turning to their internal market by training employees already on the payroll. We conclude with suggestions to fine-tune IT skills forecasting and planning.

Strategies for Staffing the Information Systems Department

The chapter explores the main factors contributing to high IS staff skill shortages, high turnover rates, job stress, and burnout. We provide managerial implications and practical “best practice” recommendations for action. Some of the recommendations are that: Information System department managers must learn how to leverage the career orientations of all Information System department employees. They should realize that not all IS employees are driven by the same sets of values and goals. IS employees should discuss their needs, values, and career orientations with their managers, and jointly develop realistic and meaningful career goals. Managers should be rewarded for assuming this role. Since an employee’s career orientation influences his/her value system, it is imperative that organizations provide different types of incentives for different employees. Top management must make sure that the working environment is equitable, fair, and consistent for all its employees regardless of gender, age, or race.

Important CIO Features for Successfully Managing IS Sub-fuctions

The importance of and the fast changes in the CIO’s role in organizations are widely recognized. So is the need for CIOs to acquire the appropriate set of knowledge and managerial skills to lead the organization’s effort in effectively using information technology. This study is based on an extensive survey of the literature addressing the desirable features of modern CIOs, and the impact of such features on the management performance of the IS department main activities or sub-functions. To empirically test the importance of the CIO features, a questionnaire was mailed to the CEO of 2,000 companies in Northern Italy providing a usable sample of 158 respondents. The direct relationships between the CIO features identified in this study and their managerial performance in the areas of IS department human resources, operational management, strategic management, relationship management, and organizational management were corroborated. The results provide some insights on the desirable features for modern CIOs, which in turn can be useful for CIO recruiting and professional development.

Important Human Factors for Systems Development Success

Improving user satisfaction with information systems is an important consideration given the amount of resources organizations invest in systems development. Many factors are likely to play a role in enhancing the satisfaction users feel toward their systems, but probably none is as important as having knowledgeable, well-trained users participate in a meaningful way in the system development process. This study empirically tests the importance of user participation, user experience, user/developer communication, user training, user influence, and user conflict encountered during the system development process. A sample of 228 system users were used for a multivariate regression model testing the importance of these factors. The results indicate that user participation, user training, and user expertise can explain 61% of the variance in user satisfaction with their systems. The other factors showed no statistical significance in this study. Based on the results, managerial recommendations are proposed to people responsible for the systems development process in organizations.