When IT Professionals Choose Nonstandard Work: The Fit between Individuals and Work Arrangements

Abstract

As organizations face the reality of rapidly evolving technology and the labor shortage of IT professionals, the externalization of their IT workforce is a viable way to handle IT costs and human capital needs. This workforce externalization increasingly is providing IT professionals with various alternatives to standard work arrangements, i.e., nonstandard work arrangements (NSWAs) such as independent contracting, remote work, and contract firm work. While the NSWA literature has shown that voluntarily choosing such arrangements relates to positive work-related outcomes, not much is known about the mechanism behind an individual’s voluntary pursuit of a nonstandard rather than a standard work arrangement, or of one type of NSWA over another. In this study, we use person-environment (P-E) fit as a theoretical framework to provide an explanation for voluntary choice of various NSWAs. Specifically, we draw connections between a variety of individual difference characteristics and the work arrangement characteristics of some of the most prevalent NSWAs for IT professionals in the United States, highlighting the important role of personality variables and individual needs in work arrangement choices. Our conceptual framework provides a new understanding of volitional choice of NSWAs. It may serve as a blueprint for future NSWA research as well as for recruiting and selection tactics for organizations utilizing nonstandard workers.