An understanding of the relative importance allows IT/HR managers to design more effective programs to retain valuable IT human resources. Furthermore, ITPs and non-IT
Jen-Ruei Fu
employees seemed to hold different attitude about career. Thus, managers should scheme proactively proper career development programs for different occupational groups. Our results also provide additional insights on management strategy for IT/HR managers.
First, satisfaction with present professional career was among all the variables the most important determinant of career commitment, especially for senior ITPs. Thus, management should constantly keep track on their satisfaction level of their career. Second, organizations should select job candidates possessing high self-confidence because high professional self-efficacy employees are likely to be motivated to continue their career and remain proficient, especially for ITPs. Third, ITPs who feel threaten by knowledge obsolescence tend to consider career change. Managers and human resource practitioners need to understand how the threat of obsolescence is perceived, and what professionals actually do to alleviate this threat. Fourth, the greater perceived accumulated costs may lead to a greater sense of obligation to one’s career. This suggests that increasing one’s accumulated investment over time, through for example increased participation in continuing education activities or professional associations, would further increase one’s career commitment.
8. Conclusion
As various technologies expand their reach, many issues facing the IT worker of today are likely to filter down and become the reality for increasing numbers of non-IT employees.
While the threat of professional obsolescence may be greater or more immediate for ITPs, it represents a potential problem for all evolving, highly skilled professions. Therefore, studying IT workers today may yield important lessons for managing the general workforce of tomorrow. Findings in this study should be relevant to all such workers. A deeper understanding of career commitment can assist employers in devising appropriate management strategies to increase favorable outcomes.
While the search for related literature was grossly limited, this would affect the robustness of the discussion on the findings. The study has a number of limitations. First, the use of self-report scale to measure the variables suggests the possibility that common method variance may account for some of the results obtained. It would be appropriate to develop more direct objective measures for career commitment. Second, the use of single-source data may have inflated correlation coefficients. Third, the proportions of unexplained variance indicate that variables not included in the model might be important to consider. Additional variables might further improve the model’s ability to predict ITPs’ career commitment.
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