Browse > Article
http://dx.doi.org/10.13088/jiis.2015.21.2.191

A Study of Factors Associated with Software Developers Job Turnover  

Jeon, In-Ho (Hivalue consulting)
Park, Sun W. (Department of Psychology, Korea University)
Park, Yoon-Joo (Department of Business Administration, Seoul National University of Science and Technology)
Publication Information
Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems / v.21, no.2, 2015 , pp. 191-204 More about this Journal
Abstract
According to the '2013 Performance Assessment Report on the Financial Program' from the National Assembly Budget Office, the unfilled recruitment ratio of Software(SW) Developers in South Korea was 25% in the 2012 fiscal year. Moreover, the unfilled recruitment ratio of highly-qualified SW developers reaches almost 80%. This phenomenon is intensified in small and medium enterprises consisting of less than 300 employees. Young job-seekers in South Korea are increasingly avoiding becoming a SW developer and even the current SW developers want to change careers, which hinders the national development of IT industries. The Korean government has recently realized the problem and implemented policies to foster young SW developers. Due to this effort, it has become easier to find young SW developers at the beginning-level. However, it is still hard to recruit highly-qualified SW developers for many IT companies. This is because in order to become a SW developing expert, having a long term experiences are important. Thus, improving job continuity intentions of current SW developers is more important than fostering new SW developers. Therefore, this study surveyed the job continuity intentions of SW developers and analyzed the factors associated with them. As a method, we carried out a survey from September 2014 to October 2014, which was targeted on 130 SW developers who were working in IT industries in South Korea. We gathered the demographic information and characteristics of the respondents, work environments of a SW industry, and social positions for SW developers. Afterward, a regression analysis and a decision tree method were performed to analyze the data. These two methods are widely used data mining techniques, which have explanation ability and are mutually complementary. We first performed a linear regression method to find the important factors assaociated with a job continuity intension of SW developers. The result showed that an 'expected age' to work as a SW developer were the most significant factor associated with the job continuity intention. We supposed that the major cause of this phenomenon is the structural problem of IT industries in South Korea, which requires SW developers to change the work field from developing area to management as they are promoted. Also, a 'motivation' to become a SW developer and a 'personality (introverted tendency)' of a SW developer are highly importantly factors associated with the job continuity intention. Next, the decision tree method was performed to extract the characteristics of highly motivated developers and the low motivated ones. We used well-known C4.5 algorithm for decision tree analysis. The results showed that 'motivation', 'personality', and 'expected age' were also important factors influencing the job continuity intentions, which was similar to the results of the regression analysis. In addition to that, the 'ability to learn' new technology was a crucial factor for the decision rules of job continuity. In other words, a person with high ability to learn new technology tends to work as a SW developer for a longer period of time. The decision rule also showed that a 'social position' of SW developers and a 'prospect' of SW industry were minor factors influencing job continuity intensions. On the other hand, 'type of an employment (regular position/ non-regular position)' and 'type of company (ordering company/ service providing company)' did not affect the job continuity intension in both methods. In this research, we demonstrated the job continuity intentions of SW developers, who were actually working at IT companies in South Korea, and we analyzed the factors associated with them. These results can be used for human resource management in many IT companies when recruiting or fostering highly-qualified SW experts. It can also help to build SW developer fostering policy and to solve the problem of unfilled recruitment of SW Developers in South Korea.
Keywords
software developers; job continuity; IT policy; datamining; human resource management;
Citations & Related Records
Times Cited By KSCI : 3  (Citation Analysis)
연도 인용수 순위
1 Coombs, C. R. "Improving Retention Strategies for IT Professionals Working in the Public Sectors," Information and Management, Vol.46, No.4(2009), 233-240.   DOI
2 Jeon, H.-J, Y.-J Lee, and J.-H. Lee, "A Study on the Effects of Software Developer's Job Satisfaction on Organizational Commitment and Turnover Intension," The Journal of Society for e-Business Studies, Vol. 17, No.4(2012), 221-242.   DOI
3 Ji, S.-G., "Strategies for Strengthening the Software Industry Competitiveness of Korea," TTA Journal, No.137(2011), 14-17.
4 Joseph, D., K. Ng, C. Koh, and S. Ang,"Turnover of IT Professionals : A Narrative Review, Meta-Analytic Structural Equation Modeling, and Model Development," MIS Quarterly, Vol.31, No.3(2007), 1-31.   DOI
5 Kim, H.-W., T.-S. Kim, "Information Security Professionals' Turnover Intention and Its Causes," Journal of The Korea Institute of Information Security and Cryptology, Vol. 20, No.1(2010), 95-104.
6 Kwon, M.-J,, S.-C. Park, "Examination of the Determinants of SW Manpower' Turnover Intention : Testing the Mediating Role of Job Satisfaction,"Journal of the Korea society of IT services, Vol.9, No.1(2010), 73-90.
7 Lee, D.-R. and C.-J. Kim, "A Study on the Relationship between Job Satisfaction and Turnover Intention: Moderating Effect of Employment Types," Korean Academy Of Human Resource Management, Vol.13, No.1 (2006), 123-144.
8 Lee, P. C. B., "Turnover on information technology professionals: A contextual model," Accounting Management and Information Technologies, Vol. 10, No. 2(2000), 101-124.   DOI
9 Locke, E. A., The nature and causes of job satisfaction, In Handbook of Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Rand McNally , 1976, 1297-1349.
10 Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning, "Software Innovative Strategies,"2013.
11 National Assembly Budget Office,"2013 Fiscal Year Performance Assessment on the financial programs: Economy & Industry,"2014.
12 Quinlan, J. R., C4.5: Program for Machine Learning, Morgan Kaufmann, 1993.
13 Robbins, P. S., Organizational Behavior, 11th ed. Englewood Cliffs. New Jersey : Prentice-Hall. Inc., 2005, 86-89.
14 Smith, C., D. W. Organ, and J. P. Near, "Organizational Citizenship Behaviors, Its Nature and Antecedents," Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol.68, No.4(1983), 653-663.   DOI
15 Summer, M. and Niderman, F., The Impact of gender differences on job satisfaction, job turnover, and career experiences of information systems professionals," Journal of Computer Information Systems, Vol. 44, No. 2(2003), 29-39.
16 Wagner, J. A.III. and J. R. Hollenbeck, Organizational Behavior : Securing Competitive Advantage, 5th ed. Msaon. Ohio : South-Western, 2005, 135-140.