Examining IT professionals' adaptation to technological change: the influence of gender and personal attributes

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the challenge of adapting to technological changes in IS departments. It develops a set of hypotheses about how two personal attributes (tolerance of ambiguity and openness to experience) will be associated with IT professionals' ability to adapt to a technological innovation. It also examines the literature on gender in the IT profession, positing that women IT employees will exhibit some differences in job performance (relative to men), but no differences in terms of job satisfaction or turnover intentions. Based on a mixed-method study of two firms that were adopting client/server development, the paper first describes the different implementation strategies employed by each firm, and then analyzes employees' responses to the change. In combining the insights from both case studies and surveys, the results showed that four out of eight hypotheses were fully supported and two received partial support. Women reported lower job satisfaction on a dimension that captures job stress, and this effect was exacerbated in the firm that expected its IT employees to demonstrate considerable initiative to master the innovation. In contrast, the women at the second firm, while showing no differences in job stress (relative to their male peers), nevertheless exhibited a very different pattern of job skills and performance than the men. Finally, the personal attribute that was strongly associated with employees' job satisfaction (openness to experience) was negatively correlated with one aspect of job performance - directly opposite to what was hypothesized. The paper concludes with insights for IS researchers and managers interested in IS personnel and technology implementation.

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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  K. Computing Milieux
  K.6 MANAGEMENT OF COMPUTING AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS
      K.6.1 Project and People Management

Additional Classification:
  K. Computing Milieux
  K.7 THE COMPUTING PROFESSION
      K.7.2 Organizations

Keywords:
IT professionals, burnout, gender, innovation adoption, openness to experience, software process innovations, stress, tolerance of ambiguity