Abstract
The turnover of IT professionals is a perpetual challenge for non-IT organizations. Based on self-categorization theory, this study proposes that IT employees’ turnover may be mitigated by fostering their identification with non-IT organizations, which can be done by meeting various facilitative conditions. Guided by intergroup contact theory, we identify IT employees’ perceived alignment between IT and the core business of an organization (business-IT alignment), the extent of boundary-spanning activities that IT employees engage in, and the closeness of the relationships between IT and non-IT employees as the drivers of their organizational identification. Using survey data collected from organizations in different industries, we obtained empirical evidence supporting the positive effects of the perceived business-IT alignment, the extent of boundary-spanning activities, and the relationship closeness between IT and non-IT employees on IT employees’ organizational identification. Additionally, there was a three-way interaction effect among the three drivers such that the relationship closeness between IT and non-IT employees reduced the positive effect of the extent of boundary-spanning activities on IT employees’ organizational identification when business-IT alignment was low. However, this negative moderating effect diminished when business-IT alignment increased. The findings of this research advance the literature and offer practical guidelines for non-IT organizations on how to enhance their IT employees’ organizational identification and how to mitigate their turnover intentions.
Recommended Citation
Wang, Xinwei; Yang, Xue; and Ye, Jonathan
(2022)
"Mitigating IT Professionals’ Turnover in Non-IT Organizations: An Organizational Identification Perspective,"
Journal of the Association for Information Systems, 23(5), 1271-1295.
DOI: 10.17705/1jais.00762
Available at:
https://aisel.aisnet.org/jais/vol23/iss5/2
DOI
10.17705/1jais.00762
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