The Impact of Social Comparison on Turnover Among Information Technology Professionals

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Wiesche, Manuel; Pfluegler, Christoph; Thatcher, Jason Bennett
• 署名单位: Dortmund University of Technology; University of Colorado System; University of Colorado Boulder; University of Manchester; Alliance Manchester Business School; Dortmund University of Technology
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEMS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0742-1222
• DOI: 10.1080/07421222.2023.2301170
• 发表日期: 2024
• 页码: 297-324
• 关键词: software-development; EMPLOYEE TURNOVER; job-satisfaction; UNFOLDING MODEL; workforce; women; COMMUNICATION; Embeddedness; experiences; attitudes

摘要

While IT workforce research often examines job- and organizational-related reasons for turnover, studies rarely connect the immediate social context of IT work to IT professionals' workplace behavior. To understand the influence of the immediate social context, we develop a social comparison model that connects the social influence of co-worker who have left an organization to turnover among IT professionals who remain. We test our model using a social network of 4,011 IT professionals employed in a large IT firm over four years. We complement our analysis of this data with a multiple-case study with five software development teams. Across the two studies, our results suggest that the departure of an IT professional increases the probability of turnover among remaining coworkers; further, we found that turnover is even more likely when the remaining IT professionals are similar in technical abilities and demographic attributes to the co-worker who left. Our results direct attention to the immediate social context as an influence on the turnover behavior of IT professionals and explain how similarity in domain-specific attributes shapes this turnover behavior. Practitioners should know that a single departure may cause a chain reaction in IT work teams and organizations and find suggestions for assigning new employees.