Investigating the Process of Developing and Retaining Competent IT Personnel: The Role of IT Leadership

Abstract

Given the critical role of information technology (IT) in achieving organizations’ strategic goals, it becomes increasingly important for organizations to develop and retain a competent IT workforce. We investigate how organizations make IT personnel feel content with their job, motivate them to perform at their best, and consequently retain them. We develop a model in which IT leadership, conceptualized as “transformational” and “transactional” IT leader behaviors, influences IT personnel’s perceptions of requisite soft skills and IT personnel’s Quality-of-Work-Life (QWL), and how IT personnel’s QWL in turn affects IT personnel’s intention to stay. Using survey data from 205 IT professionals, we found that IT leadership behaviors, particularly transformational leadership behaviors, positively influence IT personnel’s intention to stay. We also found that this relationship is fully mediated by IT personnel’s QWL. In addition, we found that transformational leadership behaviors positively influence IT personnel’s perceptions of requisite soft skills. We discuss the implications of our findings for theory and practice.