Technology Work Research Articles

How IT workers learn in the workplace

This paper describes a research project investigating the workplace learning experience of information technology (IT) workers in Hong Kong. The research project explored in depth the workplace learning experiences of 65 IT workers from three different work sites. It went beyond the identification of workplace learning methods and resources workers used at work by probing into the complexities of workplace learning processes and the theoretical issues of workplace learning. A qualitative approach was used, relying primarily on data collected via in-depth interviews. This paper reports that (1). IT workers found troubleshooting, project work and installation of hardware and software, the most likely contexts to produce significant learning; and that (2). the rapid pace of technological growth in the IT industry results in a different learning environment to traditional industries such as tailoring, thus raising questions about the applicability of the notion of the community of practice as proposed by Lave and Wenger (1991). Furthermore, by probing into the processes of known workplace learning methods such as learning from colleagues and vendors, this study uncovered many interesting findings about the workplace learning experience of IT workers.

How business‐education partnerships are building a diverse science and technology workforce: Lessons from Bayer

AbstractThe CEO of Bayer Corporation proposes business‐education partnerships in K–12 schools as a necessary action for building a stronger, diverse pipeline of future science and technology workers—and science‐literate customers. Bayer and other companies bring much more than money to the table, and the success stories prove the power of volunteerism, education reform, and raising public awareness. The author makes the case for business involvement in K–12 education; describes Bayer's signature partnership program, Making Science Make Sense; and discusses resources Bayer has developed for other interested companies, including a compendium of the programs most successful in closing science achievement gaps for girls and minorities, and a forum that brought companies together with the programs' leaders to learn what such partnerships entail and can achieve © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Skill, education and credentials in the new economy: the case of information technology workers

According to many social commentators, we live in a ‘new economy’ in which the nature of work is changing at a rapid pace. Technological change, organizational restructuring, and globalization appear to be having a dramatic impact on the nature and availability of work. Many researchers have demonstrated how labour in the new economy is increasingly contingent and insecure (Castells, 2000a; Cranford et al., 2003; Kalleberg, 2000). Workers face greater risk and uncertainty (Beck, 2000; Castells, 2000a; Smith, 1997). They are encouraged to be flexible, adaptable, and accepting of frequent changes in job content and location (Castells, 2000b; Smith, 1997). While some commentators argue that these changes allow workers more autonomy, flexibility and creativity, others emphasize experiences of job loss, insecurity and stress (Cranford et al., 2003; Sennett, 1998). Widely debated is the impact of this so-called ‘new economy’ upon workers’ skills and education patterns. Over the past several decades, some researchers have argued that economic and technological change has increased the demand for skilled, educated workers (Bell, 1973). Expanding use of computer technologies is said not only to raise, but also to change, the skills required at work, increasing demand for people with problem-solving and analytical skills (Zuboff, 1988: 75). For many observers, the new economy is a knowledge economy, where intelligence and education are rewarded and valued as never before (Karoly and Panis, 2004). Statistics reveal steady growth in jobs requiring higher education, especially in the information technology field

Letter from the chair

With pleasure, I report that the ACM-SIGMIS CPR (Computer Personnel Research) 2008 Conference was a great success! This year's conference was held at the Omni Charlottesville Hotel in Charlottesville, Virginia USA, from April 3-5, 2008, http://www.sigmis.org/CPR_2008_Home_Page.htm. The conference theme was "Refilling the Pipeline: Meeting the Renewed Demand for Information Technology Workers." Please check the ACM Digital Library at: http://portal.acm.org/dl.cfm to find the SIGMIS CPR 2008 Conference Proceedings. Please join me in extending a big thank you to the members of the 2008 CPR Conference Committee for all their hard work in making this conference a success: Conference Co-Chairs: Diane Lending, James Madison University Chelley Vician, Michigan Tech University Program Co-Chairs: Deb Armstrong, Florida State University Cindy Riemenschneider, University of Arkansas Local Arrangements: Thomas Dillon, James Madison University Doctoral Consortium K. D. Joshi, Washington State University Co-Chairs: Jo Ellen Moore, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville Treasurer: Indira Guzman, Touro University International Publicity: Anne Powell, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville Sandra Newton, Sonoma State University I am pleased to announce the recipients of the fifth annual "Magid Igbaria Outstanding Conference Paper of the Year Award:" Eileen M. Trauth, Jeria L. Quesenberry, Haiyan Huang, and Stephen McKnight for their paper, "Linking Economic Development and Workforce Diversity through Action Research." Please join me in extending heartfelt congratulations to each of them for their research excellence! The sixth annual SIGMIS Business Meeting was held at the close of the conference. Diane Lending, James Madison University, and Chelley Vician, Michigan Tech University, CPR 2008 Conference Co-Chairs, presented a Preliminary Outcome Report for the conference. Plans for next year's CPR 2009 Conference, to be held May 28-30, 2009 on the University of Limerick (UL) campus in Limerick, Ireland, are now underway. Please plan to submit a paper, join the program committee, participate in conference planning, attend the doctoral consortium, and, of course, attend the conference. Mark your calendar now! All are welcome! Encourage your colleagues to participate! For more information, please contact the Conference: Chair Norah Power, University of Limerick, norah.power@ul.ie. In addition to submitting your research for presentation at the CPR 2009 Conference, please continue to submit your best work to Data Base. This publication is the primary vehicle of communication to the membership, presenting articles of practical research significance and relating experiences in the area of business uses of information systems. Data Base provides an accessible, flexible, and timely forum for information on both well-researched topics and those less common, perhaps leading-edge topics which may not yet have found their way into the literature. Controversial or untested research topics are welcome. Thanks for your interest and support of SIGMIS. Please do contact any one of us with your ideas or suggestions to improve SIGMIS. Have a great summer!

Competitiveness and Workforce Development: The Case of the Boston Area Advanced Technological Education Connections (BATEC)

The Boston Area Advanced Technological Education Connections (BATEC) is a STEM education (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math Education) and workforce development partnership created in 2003 to improve technological education and the supply of information technology (IT) workers for the knowledge-based and high-tech industrial sector of the Greater Boston Area. It is funded by the Advanced Technological Education (ATE) initiative of the National Science Foundation (NSF). BATEC has accomplished its educational goals but wants to expand and regionalize more broadly its workforce development functions as a labor-market intermediary. This case study suggests that such an adaptation must be informed by and analysis of the structure, growth and geography of the regional IT labor market and of the human resource development practices of employers. Conceptual and strategic insight is drawn from workforce and regional development literature. Initiatives such as BATEC can promote “high-road” approaches to workforce development and help other NSF-funded ATE centers seeking to enhance their workforce development functions.

Job satisfaction of information technology workers in academic libraries

This study examines the job satisfaction of library information technology (IT) workers in relation to demographic, socioeconomic, and work-related variables, such as a sense of belonging, faith in wanting to belong, a feeling of acceptance, paying dues, job autonomy, the broker's role, and promotion opportunities. A total of 443 mail surveys were sent to a sample of IT workers at 30 university member libraries of Association of Research Libraries in the United States. A total of 202 surveys were returned, resulting in a 45.6% response rate. This study found that salary, an MLS degree, a sense of belonging, faith in wanting to belong, a feeling of acceptance, job autonomy, and promotion opportunities were related to job satisfaction of the library IT workers. This study provides some explanations as to why some IT workers are more satisfied with their jobs than others, thereby contributing to improving the quality of their work lives.

Technomadic Work: From Promotional Vision to WashTech's Opposition

The purpose of this paper is to examine ‘technomadic’, or ‘technomediated’ mobile work at the levels of labour process and labour market. It investigates the promise of technomadic work at the level of the labour process, analyses the exploitation of technomadic work at the level of the labour market, and presents an instructive case study of the ways in which US workers are collectively struggling against such arrangements through the high-tech workers’ union WashTech, the Washington Alliance of Technology Workers. The following analysis remedies gaps in the literature on technology and work by examining two overlooked phenomena: firstly the way in which the production of mobile labour markets contradicts the liberatory promise of technomadic labour processes; and secondly, workers’ collective action against exploitation in the mobile, global labour market. By combining methods that interpret meanings within texts about labour processes with an empirical overview of trends regarding the labour market, this essay aims to contribute to the productive conversation between research in political economy and in cultural studies and to an understanding of divergence between the representations and experiences of technomadic work.

Weaving the digital library web

PurposeThis column seeks to recommend five basic principles that should be used when a library web site is designed or refactored.Design/methodology/approachExplores the options available when creating or redesigning a library web siteFindingsThis column is simply exploratory, and examines issues surrounding the initial design or re‐design of a library web site.Practical implicationsThe design of a library web site should take into account these five principles as they are outlined in this column, and those principles include: simplicity, user centered design, findability, web standards and accessibility.Originality/valueThis column suggests five principles that will assist librarians and library technology workers in designing better web sites which follow usability principles, web standards and accessibility guidelines. This will hopefully improve the quality of library web based resources and services.

Letter from the chair

Happy New Year! I hope 2008 brings you health, happiness, and good cheer! It was so good to see everyone who attended the "Seventh Annual ACM-SIGMIS Networking Reception," held as an ACM-SIGMIS event prior to the International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS2007) in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Thanks to those of you who attended. Please plan to attend this event next year. Mark your calendar now for Saturday, December 13, 2008, from 5:30-7:00pm, prior to ICIS2008 to be held in Paris, France, December 14-17, 2008. Conference: ACM-SIGMIS Computer Personnel Research 2008 (CPR2008) Theme: "Meeting increased demand for the next wave of Information Technology workers" When & Where: April 3-5, 2008, Charlottesville, Virginia, USA Doctoral Consortium: April 3, 2008 Website: http://www.sigmis.org/Call_for_Papers_2008.pdf For more information regarding ACM-SIGMIS CPR2008, please contact the Conference Co-Chairs: Diane Lending, James Madison University, lendindc@jmu.edu Chelley Vician, Michigan Tech University, cvician@mtu.edu. For information regarding the Doctoral Consortium, please contact the Doctoral Consortium Co-Chairs: K. D. Joshi, Washington State University, joshi@wsu.edu Jo Ellen Moore, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, joemoor@siue.edu The venue for next year's CPR2009 is Limerick, Ireland. Please consider sending a submission by the October 2008 deadline. For more information, contact Norah Power, University of Limerick, norah.power@ul.ie. Your participation is welcome and encouraged! Thanks for your support of SIGMIS. Should you have any questions, suggestions, or other input, please feel free to contact any one of us. We look forward to seeing you at ACM-SIGMIS CPR2008 in April!

The interactive relationship of competitive climate and trait competitiveness with workplace attitudes, stress, and performance

AbstractThere has been a considerable debate about the individual and organizational benefits of competition. Adopting a person–environment fit perspective, this research examined the influence of competition as an interaction between trait competitiveness and competitive climate. Using a sample of information technology workers, competitive climate was considered as both an individual level variable and a workgroup variable. Results show that the effect of competitive climate depended on trait competitiveness and the level at which climate was assessed for four of the outcomes assessed: job satisfaction, organizational commitment, job dedication, and supervisor‐rated task performance. In general, the effect of competitive climate was more negative for individuals lower in trait competitiveness. Competitive psychological climate was associated with greater stress regardless of the level of trait competitiveness but was not directly related to self‐rated task performance. Findings suggest that managers should be cautious in encouraging competitive climate. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

From the chair

A warm invitation to attend... " The Seventh Annual ACM-SIGMIS Reception ," will be held as an ACM-SIGMIS event prior to the International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS2007) in Montréal, Québec, Canada, December 9 -- 12, 2007. Light refreshments will be served. Where: International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS2007) Montréal, Québec, Canada Fairmont Queen Elizabeth Hotel Room not yet assigned When: Saturday, December 9, 2007, 5:30 to 7:00 pm Who: All ACM-SIGMIS members and their invited guests are welcome . Please plan to attend the SIGMIS CPR'08 Conference to be held April 3--5, 2008 at the Omni Charlottesville Hotel in Charlottesville, Virginia, USA. The theme of this year's conference is "Refilling the Pipeline: Meeting the Renewed Demand for Information Technology Workers." Additionally, the 2008 conference will include a doctoral student consortium on April 3, 2007 that will host a competition for best doctoral consortium paper. More information can be found at: http://www.sigmis.org/Call_for_Papers_2008.pd. Please consider volunteering to serve on the Program Committee for the 2008 conference. Members of the Program Committee serve as reviewers and assist in identifying session chairs and discussants. If you would like to serve on the Program Committee, please contact Program Co-Chair Deb Armstrong at djarmstrong@fsu.edu. Let's make the SIGMIS CPR Conference a continuing success! Also, please continue to consider Data Base as an outlet for your research. The new online submission system is available at the Data Base website at: http://the-database.org.

Give Me the Room to Learn: Associations Between Job Control and Work-Related Learning

Societal rhetoric claims that the intellectual capital of workplaces must be leveraged if Canada is to compete in the "knowledge economy". To achieve this, however, employers must create work environments that are favorable to workers and conducive to learning. This paper uses a sample of 5800 Canadian workers from the Work and Lifelong Learning Survey and twenty interviews with Information Technology workers from the Education-Job Requirement Matching Project to focus on the relationship between worker control and learning engagement. The data show that increased levels of social and technical control are associated with increased worker engagement in formal courses, informal education (mentoring) and non-taught learning. This research has implications for job design that includes real and meaningful opportunities for worker input and agency into their own tasks and broader organizational decision-making. These results provide important information for future research regarding the inclusion and conceptualization of learning and job control constructs.

Moving beyond Schein's typology: individual career anchors in the context of Nigeria

PurposeDrawing on institutional theory, this study sets out to explore the career anchors that exist among information technology (IT) workers in Nigeria and also to establish the strongest anchors in this context.Design/methodology/approachThis research adopted a two‐pronged methodological approach, which involved the use of 30 semi‐structured interviews and a 336‐question survey.FindingsResults suggest the continued significance of traditional orientations to careers in Nigeria as well as orientations associated with new career theory.Research limitations/implicationsThe extent to which the findings of this research can be generalised is constrained by the selected context of the research.Practical implicationsHuman resources managers in Nigeria should be cautious of adopting career management models developed in the West. They should provide a reward system, which minimises financial uncertainty and risk.Originality/valueThis paper provides valuable insights on the career anchors of IT workers in a relatively neglected region in the literature. It also extends Schein's original career anchor theory.

Managing work‐life conflict among information technology workers

AbstractAs organizations continue to emphasize information technology (IT) to help them compete, IT professionals are being asked to overcome a growing list of challenges. This unrelenting emphasis on IT initiatives often results in longer working hours and around‐the‐clock support, placing IT workers at risk of suffering from work‐life conflict. Human resource managers must skillfully manage this issue, with a particular focus on mitigating the consequences associated with work‐life conflict. This article provides an analysis of the antecedents to work‐life conflict in the IT profession, as well as solutions that organizations may implement to increase the work‐life balance of IT professionals. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Ethnicity-based cultural differences in implicit managerial knowledge usage in three Australian organizations

This study was interested in determining whether ethnicity-based cultural differences affected knowledge usage in today's multicultural organizations. Our empirical study uses a psychology-based approach to measure what we refer to as implicit managerial knowledge of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) workers within three Australian organizations. The research instrument captures responses to various ICT workplace scenarios in order to determine and compare the different ways in which people make use of the implicit knowledge they use to manage themselves and others. Using the culture-based literature to assist with interpretation of the data, we have identified a number of themes and their characteristics and brought these together to provide a comprehensive model for understanding cultural influences. This model can be used to better appreciate why and perhaps anticipate how an individual's implicit managerial knowledge will be used in responding to everyday workplace situations. Such an understanding will assist organizations to develop appropriate and effective knowledge management strategies.

Generational affinities and discourses of difference: a case study of highly skilled information technology workers1

Sociologists theorizing the concept of 'generation' have traditionally looked to birth cohorts sharing major social upheavals such as war or decolonization to explain issues of generational solidarity and identity affiliation. More recently, theorists have drawn attention to the cultural elements where generations are thought to be formed through affinities with music or other types of popular culture during the 'coming of age' stage of life. In this paper, we ask whether developments in computer technology, which have both productive and cultural components, provide a basis for generational formation and identity and whether generational discourse is invoked to create cultures of difference in the workplace. Qualitative data from a sample of Information Technology workers show that these professionals mobilize 'generational' discourse and draw upon notions of 'generational affinity' with computing technology (e.g. the fact that people of different ages were immersed to varying degrees in different computing technologies) in explaining the youthful profile of IT workers and employees' differing levels of technological expertise.

An exploration of the relationship between learning organisations and the retention of knowledge workers

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to demonstrate a relationship between learning organisation theory and the potential to retain knowledge workers. It emphasises that human resource (HR) managers must recognise specific relationships between learning organisation elements, job satisfaction facets and turnover intent as they emerge for their knowledge workers.Design/methodology/approachA survey was undertaken sampling knowledge workers in the information technology (IT) industry. Measured on a Likert scale, the instrument was designed to explore the impact of learning organisation disciplines upon job satisfaction and the importance of job satisfaction in determining turnover intent.FindingsAnalysis of the survey showed evidence of a relationship between learning organisation disciplines and turnover intent. All the learning organisation disciplines discussed in the paper correlated to at least one of the six job satisfaction dimensions, of which reward and challenge exerted the most significant influence upon turnover intent.Practical implicationsThe results suggest that three initial strategies should be implemented by HR managers in order to reduce possible staff turnover. The strategies identified are first, linking shared vision, challenge and systems thinking together via personal mastery; second, being more critical of which mental models are developed and shared within the organisation; and finally, developing team learning systems throughout the organisation.Originality/valueThis study emphasises that HR managers should recognise specific career needs for their knowledge workers and that adopting appropriate strategies will increase retention.

Library Informational Technology Workers: Their Sense of Belonging, Role, Job Autonomy and Job Satisfaction

This study examines the characteristics of library information technology (IT) workers using a mail survey. The IT workers showed a moderate level of a sense of belonging, playing the broker's role, job autonomy, and job satisfaction. There were differences between librarian IT workers and non-librarian IT workers regarding most of these characteristics.

“I am kind of a nomad where I have to go places and places”… Understanding mobility, place and identity in global software work from India

Mobilities, encompassing the movements and ‘flows’ of people, objects, capital, images technologies and information across the world have been strongly implicated in the context of contemporary globalization processes. Globally distributed software development work across boundaries of time, space and place undertaken by global software organizations (GSOs), can be seen as a microcosm of such processes, reflecting a multiplicity of mobilities, while situated in a particular context. An in-depth interpretative case study of a GSO located in Mumbai, India, was used in order to understand the nature and kinds of mobilities and their interactions with place, space, selves, and identities of Information Technology (IT) workers within the firm. Three kinds of interrelated mobilities – geographical, social and existential – were identified through an interpretive analysis of the empirical material. The construct of mobility–identity is proposed for analyzing the dynamic interplay between mobilities, place, selves, and identities of the workers. An understanding of mobility–identity is seen to have both theoretical and practical implications, and contributes more broadly to the development of our understanding of a “sociology of mobilities”.

High technology workers and total rewards

This literature review suggests that the Total Rewards approach has some promise in the management of high technology workers primarily because of its broad definition of rewards. It also suggests that the rewards preference profile of high technology workers is different from that of other occupational categories and rewards programs for high technology workers should therefore be different. Research directions to verify these findings are suggested. Researchers also need to address the current lack of a sound, broadly accepted theoretical basis for Total Rewards.