Document Type
Article
Publication Date
5-1-2012
Abstract
There is a paucity of literature on Information Technology (IT) professionals that specifically emphasizes how either behavioral competencies and/or the organizational environment influence employee engagement. Employee engagement is described as a positive, work-related state of mind exhibited by high levels of energy, dedication, persistence, and happy absorption (Schaufeli, Salanova, Gonzalez-Roma, & Bakker, 2002) manifested, when coupled with customer loyalty, in business growth and profitability (McEwen, 1998). Half of all U.S. workers are not fully engaged in their work and some are totally disengaged (Balogun & Johnson, 2004). When compared to the general employee population, lack of engagement is more of an issue for IT employees, (Treadwell & Alexander, 2011), and that IT employees are less engaged than employees in customer facing roles and/or employees closer to strategic decision making. They found only 26 percent of IT employees reported full engagement and 22 percent admitted to outright disengagement (Treadwell & Alexander, 2011). We examined the behavioral competencies of IT professionals and their relationships and interactions with the organizational environment and employee engagement. We collected survey data from 795 IT professionals (individual contributors and managers) in the United States and Canada. We used validated instruments to measure the IT professional?s motives and traits, examined organizational environment, and evaluated employee engagement. Our results indicate that specific behavioral competencies and role confidence are affected differently by distinguishing factors within the organization environment. We also reveal how these unique attributes of an organization environment affects how one engages in the organization. We also discovered that particular controls such as age and gender do have not influence, while other controls such as role type and years of experience do influence engagement.
Keywords
role breadth self-efficacy, engagement, emotional, social, and cognitive competencies, positive and negative attractors, organizational environment
Rights
© The Author(s). Kelvin Smith Library provides access for non-commercial, personal, or research use only. All other use, including but not limited to commercial or scholarly reproductions, redistribution, publication or transmission, whether by electronic means or otherwise, without prior written permission is strictly prohibited.
Department/Center
Design & Innovation
Recommended Citation
Pittenger, Linda M., "IT Professionals: Understanding What Impacts Their Desire To Engage In Work" (2012). Student Scholarship. 272.
https://commons.case.edu/studentworks/272