CAREER: IT Personnel Transition and Organization Transition Strategy

University Of Utah, Salt Lake City UT

Investigators

Abstract

This research proposes to identify and validate constructs associated with the successful transition of IT professionals (within companies whose main products or services are not software or IT services)in response to changing demands. Such companies are moving from legacy system technology to distributed and advanced technology; from ad hoc work practices to software engineering discipline; and from work products "thrown over the wall" to products developed with in-house customers as full participants and business partners. Because IT professionals are in short supply, the successful transition of existing employees is especially important, yet the dramatic and discontinuous change companies and their IT personnel face render prior work on retraining and retention of employees less useful. Both quantitative and qualitative methods will be employed, so that managerial and organizational contexts can also be assessed, and new factors and relationships can be uncovered through causal mapping. Operationalization of the dependent construct, Achievement in the transition role, will be drawn from the case studies. Survey instruments will be used to capture longitudinal change information and either verify or disconfirm the model developed in earlier stages of the research.