Overview: This project focuses on the IT workplace and attempts to identify what job, organizational, and quality-of-working life (QWL) factors influence turnover intention within the current IT workforce. It also examines how gender and race/ethnicity play a role in the relationships between job and organizational factors, QWL, and intention to turnover. The study addresses the IT Workplace theme of the National Science Foundation (NSF) Information Technology Workforce Initiative. All participating companies and their corresponding employees in this research project remain anonymous.
There is very little research examining a range of job and organizational factors that can affect women and underrepresented minorities in IT work. This three-year multidisciplinary study provides a systematic test of job and organizational factors in relation to retention and turnover for gender and minority status simultaneously. The primary study objective is to better understand how the IT workplace can enhance retention, especially among women and underrepresented minorities. A secondary objective is to develop an improved, systematic set of measures that can be used by companies to assess and enhance their retention efforts appropriately and effectively.
Methods: Based on existing empirical literature, theories, and models, two possible mechanisms for the role of gender and minority status have been identified. The first postulates that gender and minority status have direct effects on job and organizational factors as well as both direct and indirect effects on QWL and intention to turnover. The second research model postulates that gender and race play a moderating role in the relationship between job and organizational factors and QWL and intention to turnover.
Funding: National Science Foundation
Pascale Carayon, PhD
Procter & Gamble Bascom Professor in Total Quality
Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
Director, Center for Quality and Productivity Improvement
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Ray Aldag
Professor, Management and Human Resources
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Mary Vernon, PhD
Professor, Computer Sciences and Industrial and Systems Engineering
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Peter Hoonakker, PhD
Research Scientist, Associate Director of Research
Center for Quality and Productivity Improvement
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Former graduate students:
Ernesto Barrios, PhD
Center for Quality and Productivity Improvement
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Jen Schwarz Schoepke, PhD
Center for Quality and Productivity Improvement
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Contractor:
Marla Haims
Research Scientist, RAND
2009
Brunette, M.J., Evia, C., Hoonakker, P., Kleiner, B., & Smith-Jackson, T. (2009). Strengthening research on construction safety: The role of macro-ergonomics. Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (HFES) 53rd Annual Meeting, (pp. 994-997). San Antonio, TX.
Korunka, C., Braunger, P., & Hoonakker, P. (2009). Safety culture and quality of working life as predictors of accidents in wood and metal processing enterprises. Paper presented at the APA/NIOSH Conference, San Juan, Puerto Rico.
2008
Korunka, C., Hoonakker, P., & Carayon, P. (2008). Quality of Working Life and turnover intention in information technology work. Human Factors in Ergonomics in Manufacturing, 18 (4), 409-423. DOI: 10.1002/hfm.20099
2007
Korunka, C., Hoonakker, P. & Carayon, P. (2007). Job and organizational factors as predictors of quality of working life and turnover intention in IT work places. In Rau., Mühlpfordt & Richter (Hrsg.). Arbeit und Gesundheit. (pp. 289-304). München: Papst Publishers.
2005
Hoonakker, P., Korunka, C., & Carayon, P. (2005). Employee commitment and turnover in information technology work. Proceedings of the European Association of Work and Organizational Psychologists (EAWOP) Conference, Istanbul, Turkey.
Korunka, C., Hoonakker, P., & Carayon, P. (2005). A universal turnover model for the IT work force – A replication study. In Carayon, Kleiner, Robertson, & Hoonakker (Eds.). Human Factors in Organizational Design and Management – VIII, (pp. 467-472). IEA Press: Santa Monica, CA.
Hoonakker, P., Carayon, P., & Schoepke, J. (2005). Development of a questionnaire to evaluate turnover and retention in the IT work force: Art or science? In Carayon, Kleiner, Robertson, & Hoonakker (Eds.). Human Factors in Organizational Design and Management – VIII, (pp. 555-560). IEA Press: Santa Monica, CA.
Hoonakker, P., Carayon, P. & Schoepke, J. (2005). Work family conflict in the IT work force. In Carayon, Kleiner, Robertson, & Hoonakker (Eds.). Human Factors in Organizational Design and Management – VIII, (pp. 81-86). IEA Press: Santa Monica, CA.
2002
Carayon, P., Haims, M.C., Brunette, M.J., & Hoonakker, P. (2002). Quality of working life among women and minorities in the IT workforce: a pilot study. Proceedings of the Annual Conference of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, Baltimore, MD. DOI: 10.1177/154193120204601514
Carayon, P., Brunette, M.J., Haims, M.C., & Hoonakker, P. (2002). Underrepresentation of women and minorities in the IT workforce: Job and organizational issues. Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Work With Display Units (WWDU) – World Wide Work. Berlin, Germany: Ergonomic Institut fur Arbeits – und Sozialforschung Forschungsgesellschaft mbH. pp. 53-55.
Carayon, P., et al. (2002). Paths to retention and turnover in the IT workforce: Understanding the relationships between gender, minority status, job and organizational factors. Presentation, University of Wisconsin- Madison.
Carayon, P., et al. (2002). Pilot Study Report Executive Summary. University of Wisconsin- Madison.