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Turnover and Turnaway of IT Workers: A Person-Environment Fit Perspective

Published: 19 June 2020 Publication History

Abstract

Especially in view of the increasing skill shortage, the retention of information technology (IT) workers in organizations remains one of the three most important IT management issues for practitioners [11]. Organizations are confronted with two relevant behavioral outcomes on behalf of IT workers in this context: turnover and turnaway. While turnover means that IT workers leave their employer and start working for another employer while staying in the IT profession, turnaway reflects the abandonment of the IT profession [9]. Previous research emerging from the CPR community examines a variety of factors that lead to IT workers' turnover and turnaway, e.g. perceived job alternatives [10, 12], job satisfaction, organizational commitment [13], or personality attributes [5]. These can be classified into three categories on a superior level: individual, job-related, and organization-related factors [10]. Do these factors no longer fit with the IT workers' expectations, the intention to turn over or turn away is developed. The influence of the existing or absent fit on workers' individual outcomes, such as turnover or turnaway, is grounded in person-environment fit theory [6, 8]. In the work-related context, this environment fit consists of five dimensions:
--person-vocation fit (the worker's fit with the profession s/he chose),
--person-job fit (the worker's fit with the job s/he is currently working in),
--person-organization fit (the worker's fit with the organization, where s/he is currently employed),
--person-group fit (the worker's fit with the work group or team s/he is working with), and
--person-person fit (the worker's fit with her/his supervisor).
The person-environment fit theory has already taken up in information systems research examining the development of single fit dimensions out of work-related factors [14, 15].
In our research, we focus on the entirety of fit dimensions as included in the person-environment fit theory as well as on their influence of IT workers' turnover and turnaway intention. The analysis will be performed along different demographic characteristics, which have been evidently shown to play a role in previous studies on turnover and turnaway: age [7], gender [9], work experience, and job type [5] (see Figure 1).

References

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Jack Cohen. 1988. Statistical power analysis for the behavioral sciences (2nd ed.). L. Erlbaum Associates, Hillsdale, N.J.
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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.
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Julian A. Edwards and Jon Billsbery. 2010. Testing a Multidimensional Theory of Person-Environment Fit. Journal of Managerial Issues 22, 4, 476--493.
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Magid Igbaria and Sidney R. Siegel. 1992. The reasons for turnover of information systems personnel. Information & Management 23, 6, 321--330.
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Karen Jansen and Amy Kristof-Brown. 2006. Toward a Multidimensional Theory of Person-Environment Fit. Journal of Managerial Issues 18, 2, 193--212.
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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.
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Damien Joseph, Kok-Yee Ng, Christine Koh, and Soon Ang. 2007. Turnover of Information Technology Professionals. A Narrative Review, Meta-Analytic Structural Equation Modeling, and Model Development. MIS Quarterly 31, 3, 547.
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Leon Kappelman, Vess Johnson, Russell Torres, Chris Maurer, and Ephraim McLean. 2019. A study of information systems issues, practices, and leadership in Europe. Eur J Inf Syst 28, 1, 26--42.
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Jo E. Moore, Andrea J. Hester, and Susan E. Yager. 2016. Paving the Higher Road: The Role of Voice in the Retention of IT Workers. SIGMIS Database 47, 1, 8--28.
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Jason B. Thatcher, Yongmei Liu, Lee P. Stepina, Joseph M. Goodman, and Darren C. Treadway. 2006. IT worker turnover: an empirical examination of intrinsic motivation. SIGMIS Database 37, 2--3, 133.
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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.
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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.

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  1. Turnover and Turnaway of IT Workers: A Person-Environment Fit Perspective

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      cover image ACM Conferences
      SIGMIS-CPR '20: Proceedings of the 2020 Computers and People Research Conference
      June 2020
      180 pages
      ISBN:9781450371308
      DOI:10.1145/3378539
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      Published: 19 June 2020

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      1. it workers
      2. person-environment fit theory
      3. turnaway
      4. turnover

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