skip to main content
10.1145/3322385.3322394acmconferencesArticle/Chapter ViewAbstractPublication PagescprConference Proceedingsconference-collections
research-article

Sustaining the IT Workforce: A Review of Major Issues in 25 Years and Future Directions

Published: 12 June 2019 Publication History

Abstract

Attracting, recruiting and retaining a sufficient number of information technology professionals remains a key issue for organizations. Although research and practice call upon this issue for quite some time and suggest various interventions, the shortage of qualified IT professionals does not decline, but seems to increase. Thus, sustaining the IT workforce represents a recurring issue faced with challenges that are fixed firmly within the domain. This literature review aims to identify the major issues related to sustaining IT professionals from a human resource management perspective. Sixty-seven research articles from the AIS Senior Scholars' basket are reviewed to identify the major issues respectively to the past times from the dot com boom during the 1990s, across industry recession in 2001 up to the present day. Four major issues are explained and discussed.

References

[1]
Alison Adam, Marie Griffiths, Claire Keogh, Karenza Moore, Helen Richardson, and Angela Tattersall. 2006. Being an 'it' in IT. Gendered identities in IT work. Eur J Inf Syst 15, 4, 368--378.
[2]
Ritu Agarwal and Thomas W. Ferratt. 2002. Enduring practices for managing IT professionals. Commun. ACM 45, 9, 73--79.
[3]
Manju K. Ahuja. 2002. Women in the information technology profession. A literature review, synthesis and research agenda. Eur J Inf Syst 11, 1, 20--34.
[4]
Manju K. Ahuja, Katherine M. Chudoba, Charles J. Kacmar, D. H. McKnight, and Joey F. George. 2007. ICT Road Warriors: Balancing Work-Family Conflict, Job Autonomy, and Work Overload to Mitigate Turnover Intentions. MIS Quarterly 31, 1, 1--17.
[5]
Soon Ang and Sandra A. Slaughter. 2001. Work Outcomes and Job Design for Contract versus Permanent Information Systems Professionals on Software Development Teams. MIS Quarterly 25, 3, 321.
[6]
Hala Annabi and Sarah Lebovitz. 2018. Improving the retention of women in the IT workforce. An investigation of gender diversity interventions in the USA. Info Systems J 30, 1, 17.
[7]
Deborah J. Armstrong, Nita Brooks, and Cynthia K. Riemenschneider. 2015. Exhaustion from information system career experience: implications for turn-away intention. MIS Quartlery 39, 713--728.
[8]
Michael Armstrong. 2007. A handbook of human resource management practice (10. ed., reprinted.). Kogan Page, London.
[9]
Wasana Bandara, Suraya Miskon, and Erwin Fielt. 2011. A systematic, tool-supported method for conducting literature reviews in information systems. Proceedings of the19th European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS 2011), Helsinki, Finland.
[10]
Jack J. Baroudi and Magid Igbaria. 1994. An Examination of Gender Effects on Career Success of Information Systems Employees. Journal of Management Information Systems 11, 3, 181--201.
[11]
Nita G. Brooks, Cindy K. Riemenschneider, Bill C. Hardgrave, and Anne M. O'Leary-Kelly. 2011. IT professional identity. Needs, perceptions, and belonging. Eur J Inf Syst 20, 1, 87--102.
[12]
CEDEFOP, Ed. 2016. Skill Shortage and Surplus Occupations in Europe: Cedefop insights into which occupationsare in high demand -- and why. Briefing Note - 9115 EN, Thessaloniki, Greece.
[13]
Vivek Choudhury, Alexandre B. Lopes, and Doug Arthur. 2010. IT Careers Camp. An Early Intervention Strategy to Increase IS Enrollments. Information Systems Research 21, 1, 1--14.
[14]
Kaylene Clayton, Jenine Beekhuyzen, and Sue Nielsen. 2012. Now I know what ICT can do for me! ISJ (Information Systems Journal) 22, 5, 375--390.
[15]
J. D. Couger and Ramon O'Callaghan. 1994. Comparing the motivations of Spanish and Finnish computer personnel with those of the United States. Eur J Inf Syst 3, 4, 285--291.
[16]
Michael Dinger, Jason B. Thatcher, Darren Treadway, Lee Stepina, and Jacob Breland. 2015. Does Professionalism Matter in the IT Workforce? An Empirical Examination of IT Professionals. Journal of the Association for Information Systems 16, 4, 281--313.
[17]
Line Dubé. 2014. Exploring How IT Professionals Experience Role Transitions at the End of Successful Projects. Journal of Management Information Systems 31, 1, 17--46.
[18]
Andreas Eckhardt, Sven Laumer, Christian Maier, and Tim Weitzel. 2016. The effect of personality on IT personnel's job-related attitudes. Establishing a dispositional model of turnover intention across IT job types. J Inf Technol 31, 1, 48--66.
[19]
Alper Ertürk. 2014. Influences of HR Practices, Social Exchange, and Trust on Turnover Intentions of Public IT Professionals. Public Personnel Management 43, 1, 140--175.
[20]
Thomas W. Ferratt, Ritu Agarwal, Carol V. Brown, and Jo E. Moore. 2005. IT Human Resource Management Configurations and IT Turnover. Theoretical Synthesis and Empirical Analysis. Information Systems Research 16, 3, 237--255.
[21]
Thomas W. Ferratt, Jayesh Prasad, and Harvey G. Enns. 2012. Synergy and Its Limits in Managing Information Technology Professionals. Information Systems Research 23, 4, 1175--1194.
[22]
Thomas W. Ferratt, Larry E. Short, and Ritu Agarwal. 1993. Measuring the Information Systems Supervisor's Work-Unit Environment and Demonstrated Skill at Supervising. Journal of Management Information Systems 9, 4, 121--144.
[23]
Nathan Heinze and Qing Hu. 2009. Why college undergraduates choose IT. A multi-theoretical perspective. Eur J Inf Syst 18, 5, 462--475.
[24]
Magid Igbaria and Jack J. Baroudi. 1995. The Impact of Job Performance Evaluations on Career Advancement Prospects. An Examination of Gender Differences in the IS Workplace. MIS Quarterly 19, 1, 107.
[25]
Magid Igbaria and Tor Guimaraes. 1993. Antecedents and Consequences of Job Satisfaction among Information Center Employees. Journal of Management Information Systems 9, 4, 145--174.
[26]
Magid Igbaria, Guy Meredith, and Derek C. Smith. 1995. Career orientations of information systems employees in South Africa. The Journal of Strategic Information Systems 4, 4, 319--340.
[27]
Magid Igbaria, Saroj Parasuraman, and Michael K. Badawy. 1994. Work Experiences, Job Involvement, and Quality of Work Life among Information Systems Personnel. MIS Quarterly 18, 2, 175.
[28]
James Jiang and Gary Klein. 2002. A Discrepancy Model of Information System Personnel Turnover. Journal of Management Information Systems 19, 2, 249--272.
[29]
James J. Jiang and Gary Klein. 1999. Supervisor Support and Career Anchor Impact on the Career Satisfaction of the Entry-Level Information Systems Professional. Journal of Management Information Systems 16, 3, 219--240.
[30]
Luiz A. Joia and Ursula Mangia. 2017. Career transition antecedents in the information technology area. Info Systems J 27, 1, 31--57.
[31]
Joseph, Ng, Koh, and Ang. 2007. Turnover of Information Technology Professionals. A Narrative Review, Meta-Analytic Structural Equation Modeling, and Model Development. MIS Quarterly 31, 3, 547.
[32]
Damien Joseph, Soon Ang, and Sandra A. Slaughter. 2015. Turnover or Turnaway? Competing Risks Analysis of Male and Female IT Professionals' Job Mobility and Relative Pay Gap. Information Systems Research 26, 1, 145--164.
[33]
Damien Joseph, Wai F. Boh, Soon Ang, and Sandra A. Slaughter. 2012. The career paths less (or more) traveled: A sequence analysis of IT career histories, mobility patterns, and career success. MIS Quarterly 36, 2, 427--462.
[34]
Leon Kappelman, Ephraim McLean, Vess Johnson, Russell. Torres, Quynh Nguyen, Chris Maurer, and Alsius David. 2018. The 2017 SIM IT Issues and Trends Study. MIS Quarterly Executive 17, 1, 53--88.
[35]
Youngsoo Kim, Ramayya Krishnan, and Linda Argote. 2012. The Learning Curve of IT Knowledge Workers in a Computing Call Center. Information Systems Research 23, 3-part-2, 887--902.
[36]
Ruth C. King and Vikram Sethi. 1997. The moderating effect of organizational commitment on burnout in information systems professionals. Eur J Inf Syst 6, 2, 86--96.
[37]
Gill Kirton and Maxine Robertson. 2018. Sustaining and advancing IT careers. Women's experiences in a UK-based IT company. The Journal of Strategic Information Systems 27, 2, 157--169.
[38]
Denis M. S. Lee, Eileen M. Trauth, and Douglas Farwell. 1995. Critical Skills and Knowledge Requirements of IS Professionals. A Joint Academic/Industry Investigation. MIS Quarterly 19, 3, 313.
[39]
Natalia Levina and Mingdi Xin. 2007. Research Note-Comparing IT Workers' Compensation Across Country Contexts. Demographic, Human Capital, and Institutional Factors. Information Systems Research 18, 2, 193--210.
[40]
John W. Lounsbury, Lauren Moffitt, Lucy W. Gibson, Adam W. Drost, and Mark Stevens. 2007. An investigation of personality traits in relation to job and career satisfaction of information technology professionals. J Inf Technol 22, 2, 174--183.
[41]
Paul B. Lowry, Gregory D. Moody, James Gaskin, Dennis F. Galletta, Sean L. Humpherys, Jordan B. Barlow, and David W. Wilson. 2013. Evaluating Journal Quality and the Association for Information Systems Senior Scholars' Journal Basket Via Bibliometric Measures. Do Expert Journal Assessments Add Value? MIS Quarterly 37, 4, 993--1012.
[42]
Jerry Luftman and Rajkumar M. Kempaiah. 2007. The IS Organization of the Future. The IT Talent Challenge. Information Systems Management 24, 2, 129--138.
[43]
Frank MacCrory, Vidyanand Choudhary, and Alain Pinsonneault. 2016. Research Note-Designing Promotion Ladders to Mitigate Turnover of IT Professionals. Information Systems Research 27, 3, 648--660.
[44]
Christian Maier, Sven Laumer, Andreas Eckhardt, and Tim Weitzel. 2015. Who really quits? A longitudinal analysis of voluntary turnover among IT personnel. SIGMIS Database 46, 4, 26--47.
[45]
Adi Masli, Vernon J. Richardson, Marcia Weidenmier Watson, and Robert W. Zmud. 2016. Senior Executives' IT Management Responsibilities. Serious IT-Related Deficiencies and CEO/CFO Turnover. MIS Quarterly 40, 3, 687--708.
[46]
Makoto Matsuo, Christina W.Y. Wong, and Kee-hung Lai. 2008. Experience-based learning of Japanese IT professionals. A qualitative research. The Journal of Strategic Information Systems 17, 3, 202--213.
[47]
Mark E. McMurtrey, Varun Grover, James T. C. Teng, and Nancy J. Lightner. 2002. Job Satisfaction of Information Technology Workers. The Impact of Career Orientation and Task Automation in a CASE Environment. Journal of Management Information Systems 19, 2, 273--302.
[48]
Jo E. Moore. 2000. One Road to Turnover: An Examination of Work Exhaustion in Technology Professionals. MIS Quarterly 24, 1, 141--168.
[49]
Gaëtan Mourmant, Michael J. Gallivan, and Michel Kalika. 2009. Another road to IT turnover. The entrepreneurial path. Eur J Inf Syst 18, 5, 498--521.
[50]
Rennie Naidoo. 2016. A communicative-tension model of change-induced collective voluntary turnover in IT. The Journal of Strategic Information Systems 25, 4, 277--298.
[51]
Caroline E. Oehlhorn, Sven Laumer, and Christian Maier. 2017. About Well-considered Decisions, Favorable Alternatives and Sudden Ideas: A Qualitative Research to Identify Beliefs that Influence Women to Study Information Systems in Germany. Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Wirtschaftsinformatik.
[52]
Raymond R. Panko. 2008. IT employment prospects. Beyond the dotcom bubble. Eur J Inf Syst 17, 3, 182--197.
[53]
Androniki Panteli, Janet Stack, Malcolm Atkinson, and Harvie Ramsay. 1999. The status of women in the UK IT industry. An empirical study. Eur J Inf Syst 8, 3, 170--182.
[54]
Niki Panteli. 2012. A community of practice view of intervention programmes. The case of women returning to IT. Information Systems Journal 22, 5, 391--405.
[55]
Guy Paré, Marie-Claude Trudel, Mirou Jaana, and Spyros Kitsiou. 2015. Synthesizing information systems knowledge. A typology of literature reviews. Information & Management 52, 2, 183--199.
[56]
Janet K. Ply, Jo E. Moore, Clay K. Williams, and Jason B. Thatcher. 2012. Is Employee Attitudes and Perceptions at Varying Levels of Software Process Maturity. MIS Quarterly 36, 2, 601--624.
[57]
Jeria L. Quesenberry and Eileen M. Trauth. 2012. The (dis)placement of women in the IT workforce. An investigation of individual career values and organisational interventions. Information Systems Journal 22, 6, 457--473.
[58]
Gudivada V. Rao and K. I. Priyadarshini. 2017. Some Insights into Procedures and Practices to Acquire the Right Talent. Journal of Strategic Human Resource Management 6, 2, 34--39.
[59]
Blaize H. Reich and Michelle L. Kaarst-Brown. 1999. "Seeding the Line". Understanding the Transition from IT to Non-IT Careers. MIS Quarterly 23, 3, 337.
[60]
Blaize H. Reich and Michelle L. Kaarst-Brown. 2003. Creating social and intellectual capital through IT career transitions. The Journal of Strategic Information Systems 12, 2, 91--109.
[61]
Margaret F. Reid, Myria W. Allen, Deborah J. Armstrong, and Cynthia K. Riemenschneider. 2010. Perspectives on challenges facing women in IS. The cognitive gender gap. Eur J Inf Syst 19, 5, 526--539.
[62]
Gail Ridley and Judy Young. 2012. Theoretical approaches to gender and IT. Examining some Australian evidence. Info Systems J 22, 5, 355--373.
[63]
Cynthia K. Riemenschneider, Deborah J. Armstrong, and Jo E. Moore. 2009. Meeting the demand for IT workers. A call for research. Eur J Inf Syst 18, 5, 458--461.
[64]
Maxine Robertson, Sue Newell, Jacky Swan, Lars Mathiassen, and Gro Bjerknes. 2001. The issue of gender within computing. Reflections from the UK and Scandinavia. Info Systems J 11, 2, 111--126.
[65]
Robert Roepke, Ritu Agarwal, and Thomas W. Ferratt. 2000. Aligning the IT Human Resource with Business Vision. The Leadership Initiative at 3M. MIS Quarterly 24, 2, 327.
[66]
Paige Rutner, Bill C. Hardgrave, and D. H. McKnight. 2008. Emotional Dissonance and the Information Technology Professional. MIS Quarterly 32, 3, 635--652.
[67]
Saonee Sarker, Manju Ahuja, and Suprateek Sarker. 2018. Work--Life Conflict of Globally Distributed Software Development Personnel. An Empirical Investigation Using Border Theory. Information Systems Research 29, 1, 103--126.
[68]
Stanley J. Smits, Ephraim R. McLean, and John R. Tanner. 1993. Managing High-Achieving Information Systems Professionals. Journal of Management Information Systems 9, 4, 103--120.
[69]
Jason B. Thatcher, Lee Stepina, and Randall J. Boyle. 2002. Turnover of Information Technology Workers: Examining Empirically the Influence of Attitudes, Job Characteristics, and External Markets. Journal of Management Information Systems 19, 3, 231--261.
[70]
Peter A. Todd, James D. McKeen, and R. B. Gallupe. 1995. The Evolution of IS Job Skills. A Content Analysis of IS Job Advertisements from 1970 to 1990. MIS Quarterly 19, 1, 1--27.
[71]
Eileen M. Trauth, Douglas W. Farwell, and Denis Lee. 1993. The IS Expectation Gap. Industry Expectations versus Academic Preparation. MIS Quarterly 17, 3, 293.
[72]
Eileen M. Trauth, Jeria L. Quesenberry, and Haiyan Huang. 2009. Retaining women in the U.S. IT workforce. Theorizing the influence of organizational factors. Eur J Inf Syst 18, 5, 476--497.
[73]
John Tripp, Cindy Rienemschneider, and Jason Thatcher. 2016. Job Satisfaction in Agile Development Teams. Agile Development as Work Redesign. JAIS 17, 4, 267--307.
[74]
Gregory E. Truman and Jack J. Baroudi. 1994. Gender Differences in the Information Systems Managerial Ranks. An Assessment of Potential Discriminatory Practices. MIS Quarterly 18, 2, 129.
[75]
Viswanath Venkatesh, Jaime B. Windeler, Kathryn M. Bartol, and Ian O. Williamson. 2017. Person--Organization and Person--Job Fit Perceptions of New IT Employees. Work Outcomes and Gender Differences. MIS Quarterly 41, 2, 525--558.
[76]
Jan vom Brocke, Alexander Simons, Bjoern Niehaves, Kai Reimer, Ralf Plattfaut, and Anne Cleven. 2009. Reconstructing the Giant: On the Importance of Rigour in Documenting the Literature Search Process. Proceedings of the European Conference on Information Systems.
[77]
Michael R. Wade and Michael Parent. 2001. Relationships Between Job Skills and Performance. A Study of Webmasters. Journal of Management Information Systems 18, 3, 71--96.
[78]
Stephanie Watts and John C. Henderson. 2006. Innovative IT climates. CIO perspectives. The Journal of Strategic Information Systems 15, 2, 125--151.
[79]
Jane Webster and Richard T. Watson. 2002. Analyzing the past to prepare for the future: writing a literature review. MIS Quarterly 26, 2, xiii--xxiii.
[80]
Tim Weitzel, Andreas Eckhardt, and Sven Laumer. 2009. A Framework for Recruiting IT Talent: Lessons from Siemens. MIS Quarterly Executive 8, 4, 175--189.
[81]
Jaime B. Windeler and Cynthia K. Riemenschneider. 2016. The influence of ethnicity on organizational commitment and merit pay of IT workers. The role of leader support. Info Systems J 26, 2, 157--190.
[82]
Stephen C. Wingreen and J. E. Blanton. 2017. IT professionals' person-organization fit with IT training and development priorities. Info Systems J 28, 2, 294--317.
[83]
Christopher Wright. 2008. Reinventing human resource management. Business partners, internal consultants and the limits to professionalization. Human Relations 61, 8, 1063--1086.

Cited By

View all
  • (2024)Understanding Employer Attractiveness for Generation Z in the IT IndustryEuropean Journal of Management Issues10.15421/19240332:1(21-29)Online publication date: 15-Mar-2024
  • (2024)IT Workforce Outsourcing Benefits, Challenges and Success Factors - Systematic Mapping StudyProceedings of the 20th Brazilian Symposium on Information Systems10.1145/3658271.3658305(1-10)Online publication date: 20-May-2024
  • (2024)Bridging the Digital Talent Gap - Facilitating and Encouraging Career Transitions into the IT Sector: Germany and US ContextsProceedings of the 2024 Computers and People Research Conference10.1145/3632634.3655885(1-3)Online publication date: 29-May-2024
  • Show More Cited By

Index Terms

  1. Sustaining the IT Workforce: A Review of Major Issues in 25 Years and Future Directions

    Recommendations

    Comments

    Information & Contributors

    Information

    Published In

    cover image ACM Conferences
    SIGMIS-CPR '19: Proceedings of the 2019 on Computers and People Research Conference
    June 2019
    211 pages
    ISBN:9781450360883
    DOI:10.1145/3322385
    Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

    Sponsors

    Publisher

    Association for Computing Machinery

    New York, NY, United States

    Publication History

    Published: 12 June 2019

    Permissions

    Request permissions for this article.

    Check for updates

    Author Tags

    1. attraction
    2. human resource management
    3. it professionals
    4. it workforce
    5. literature review
    6. recruiting
    7. retention
    8. turnover

    Qualifiers

    • Research-article

    Conference

    SIGMIS-CPR '19
    Sponsor:

    Acceptance Rates

    SIGMIS-CPR '19 Paper Acceptance Rate 20 of 30 submissions, 67%;
    Overall Acceptance Rate 300 of 480 submissions, 63%

    Contributors

    Other Metrics

    Bibliometrics & Citations

    Bibliometrics

    Article Metrics

    • Downloads (Last 12 months)29
    • Downloads (Last 6 weeks)3
    Reflects downloads up to 17 Jan 2025

    Other Metrics

    Citations

    Cited By

    View all
    • (2024)Understanding Employer Attractiveness for Generation Z in the IT IndustryEuropean Journal of Management Issues10.15421/19240332:1(21-29)Online publication date: 15-Mar-2024
    • (2024)IT Workforce Outsourcing Benefits, Challenges and Success Factors - Systematic Mapping StudyProceedings of the 20th Brazilian Symposium on Information Systems10.1145/3658271.3658305(1-10)Online publication date: 20-May-2024
    • (2024)Bridging the Digital Talent Gap - Facilitating and Encouraging Career Transitions into the IT Sector: Germany and US ContextsProceedings of the 2024 Computers and People Research Conference10.1145/3632634.3655885(1-3)Online publication date: 29-May-2024
    • (2024)Transforming the IT Landscape: Ecosystem-Based Approaches to Career TransitionsProceedings of the 2024 Computers and People Research Conference10.1145/3632634.3655872(1-2)Online publication date: 29-May-2024
    • (2021)Just Let Me Do My Job!ACM SIGMIS Database: the DATABASE for Advances in Information Systems10.1145/3481629.348163552:3(77-95)Online publication date: 11-Aug-2021

    View Options

    Login options

    View options

    PDF

    View or Download as a PDF file.

    PDF

    eReader

    View online with eReader.

    eReader

    Media

    Figures

    Other

    Tables

    Share

    Share

    Share this Publication link

    Share on social media