The effect of individual cultural attributes on IT professionals’ turnover intention

Employee turnover has been named as one of the significant challenges to organizations, since its effects have been associated with difficulties that firms must face. Several research works study the causes of the employee turnover, for instance: decrease of customer satisfaction and productivity, wasting of investment in professionals’ recruitment and training if workers leave, etc. (Moore 2000, Joseph et al. 2007, Zimmerman 2008).

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Turnover intention for IT workforce is even worse. On one hand, they are under the pressure of spending cuts and changes in IT implementation (Rutner et al. 2008), and on the other hand, firms ask for higher levels of skills and competences. As a consequence, IT professionals are more exposed to work exhaustion and burnout (Moore 2000) and to increase turnover. This situation leads firms to explore management strategies to retain IT professionals and to avoid losing IT talent.

To gain some insight into the causes of turnover for IT professionals, Trabado (2010) proposes to study the mediating effects of individual cultural values on turnover intention for IT professionals, extending Moore’s (2000) model with a new construct based on the individual cultural influence on organizational commitment.

According to your experience, do you think that the individual culture has an important role in the turnover intention?

References:

• Joseph, D., Ng, K.Y., Koh, C., & Ang, S., 2007. Turnover of Information Technology Professionals: a narrative review, meta-analytic structural equation modeling, and model development, MIS Quarterly, Vol. 31, No. 3, pp. 547-577.
• Moore, J.E., 2000. One Road to Turnover: An Examination of Work Exhaustion in Technology Professionals, MIS Quarterly, Vol. 24, No. 1, pp. 141-168.
• Rutner, P.S., Hardgrave, B.C., & McKnight, D.H., 2008. Emotional dissonance and the Information Technology Professional, MIS Quarterly, Vol. 32, No. 3, pp. 635-652.
• Trabado, J., 2010. Efecto de los atributos culturales individuales en la intención voluntaria de cambiar de puesto de trabajo entre los profesionales de las TICs. Advanced Studies Diploma (DEA), La Salle - Ramon Llull Universtity.
• Zimmerman, R.D., 2008. Understanding the Impact of Personality Traits on Individual’s Turnover Decisions: A Meta-Analytic Path Model, Personnel Psychology, Vol. 61, pp. 309-348.