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Abstract—This paper employs a systematic review approach
to yield an insight into existing studies on the turnover of
Information Systems (IS) / Information Technology (IT)
personnel. Our systematic review of 72 studies from 1980 to
2009 makes implications about the background and trend of
research on IS/IT turnover as well as the theories used in the
literature. Based on the results of our review, we propose that
the topic of IS/IT turnover has been paid a great deal of
attention in recent years. After 1998 especially, there has been
significant growth in the number of academic papers on the
topic. Business, IS and Management discipline areas
respectively have published the highest number of papers in the
area. Additionally, Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and Dual
Factor Theory are two most frequently used theories in IS/IT
turnover literature.
Index Terms—Intention to leave, intention to stay, IS/IT
turnover, systematic review.
I. INTRODUCTION
The turnover rate of information system professionals (IS
turnover) is one of the most persistent challenges
encountered by organizations todays. Retaining IS/IT
personnel is vital to organizations as they often hold tacit
knowledge about how internal systems operate. IS turnover
rates are in excess of 30% in some countries [1], raising
serious concerns among IS practitioners and scholars. This
problem worsens as the IS/IT labor market tightens due to the
exponential growth of IS/IT applications in organizations and
the continuing decline in the supply of IS/IT graduates [2].
Because of high demand for IS/IT skilled workers, they
can easily find new jobs. Turnover creates direct recruiting
and training costs for companies as well as indirect costs due
to disruptions in organizational processes [3]. IS/IT
professionals usually have specialized skills which makes
turnover expensive. To replace an IS/IT employee, an
organization has to spend from one to seven times the
employee's annual salary [4]. As a result of high rates of
turnover and associated costs, employers have shifted from
perceiving IS/IT employees as a replaceable commodity to
considering them as a valued asset [3].
This paper presents findings from our systematic review
on IS/IT personnel’s intention to leave an organization. A
Manuscript received August 14, 2012; revised November 9, 2012.
Amir H. Ghapanchi is with the school of ICT, Griffith University, Gold
Coast, QLD, Australia. (e-mail: a.ghapanchi@griffith.edu.au).
Ahmad R. Ghapanchi is with the department of computer engineering,
Isfahan University, Iran.
Amir Talaei-Khoei is with the school of Business, the University of
Sunshine Coast, QLD, Australia.
Babak Abedin is with the school of Corporate Governance, Macquarie
University, NSW, Australia.
strong need for this paper was the fact that previous
literature-based research on the topic – e.g. [1]- have not
covered a comprehensive body of research published to
provide a big picture of the available resources on IS/IT
personnel’s intention to leave.`
A systematic literature review assesses and interprets all
available resources relevant to a particular research topic. It
seeks to provide an assessment of the literature relative to an
area of research by using a systematic methodology. This
research has followed [5]-[6] systematic review guidelines to
reflect a big picture of IS/IT turnover research. This paper
seeks to answer following research questions:
RQ1: What are demographic implications and the trend of
research on IS/IT turnover?
RQ2: What are the theories applied in IS/IT turnover
research?
This paper aims to help CIOs, IS human resource
managers, IS managers, IS project leaders and interested
researchers understand the current state of research in IT/IS
turnover. Our systematic approach helps to determine where
the literature has recurring themes, what trend this stream of
research has followed, and where the gaps are in the existing
body of knowledge.
This paper is organized as follows. Section 2 describes the
method used for our systematic review. Section 3 presents
results of our synthesis of the literature, including
background information and trend of research followed by
theories which have been used in IS/IT literature (section 4).
Section 5 presents the conclusions of the research.
II. RESEARCH METHOD
This section describes the steps of the methodology used to
perform this systematic review study. Fig. 1. shows the stages
of study selection for systematic review of this paper.
Systematic review is defined as a methodical way to
summarize the empirical studies conducted on a topic, to
identify gaps in current research or to provide background in
order to justify new research. This research followed the
systematic review guidelines of [5]-[6], as follows:
1) Identify the need for a systematic literature review
2) Formulate research question(s)
3) Carry out a comprehensive search for primary studies
4) Assess the quality of the studies, excluding low quality
or irrelevant studies
5) Extract data from each included study
6) Summarize and synthesize study results (meta-analysis)
7) Interpret the results to determine their applicability
8) Write-up study as a report.
A Systematic Review on Information Technology
Personnel’s Turnover
Amir Hossein Ghapanchi, Ahmad Reza Ghapanchi, Amir Talaei-Khoei, and Babak Abedin
Lecture
Notes on Software Engineering, Vol. 1, No. 1, February 2013
98
DOI: 10.7763/LNSE.2013.V1.22
A. Database Search
In this section we discuss how we organized the
comprehensive search for primary studies (step 3 above). The
databases that included in our systematic review were:
Science Direct, Business Source Premier, Inspec, Springer
Link, AIS (Association for Information System) Electronic
library, Scopus, ProQuest Science Journals, Google scholar,
ISI Web of Science, and ACM Digital library.
In the first stage of the search of the databases, the titles,
abstracts, and keywords of the journal and conference
proceeding articles in the included electronic databases were
searched using the following search terms:
("intention to leave" or "intention to turnover" or
"intention to quit" or "intention to withdraw" or "intention to
stay" or "turnover intention" or "leave intention" or "quit
intention" or "stay intention" or "withdrawal intention" or
"employee retention" or "employees retention" or "personnel
retention" or "worker retention" or "workers retention" or
"manager retention" or "managers retention" or "professional
retention" or "professionals retention") and ("IS worker" or
"IT worker" or "IS employee" or "IT employee" or "IS
personnel" or "IT personnel" or "IS manager" or "IT
manager" or "IS professional" or "IT professional" or "IS
workforce" or "IT workforce")
Editorial notes, prefaces, article summaries, interviews,
news, reviews, correspondence, discussions, comments,
reader’s letters and summaries of tutorials, workshops,
panels, and poster sessions were excluded from the search.
This search strategy resulted in a total of 4548 studies.
Data was extracted from all 72 (out of 4548) studies
included in our systematic review using a form designed by
researchers. This form enabled us to record all relevant
details of the papers needed for further analysis. The form
extracted data from the studies in 2 main sections:
Demography (including year of publication, country,
continent, affiliated department, source type (journal /
conference proceeding), and source name); and Theories
used by the study.
III. RESULTS - BACKGROUND
Fig. 2. shows the number of papers on IS/IT personnel’s
intention to leave each year. The number of papers has
considerably increased since 1998, peaking in 2002 and 2006.
It suggests that this topic has grabbed the attention of
academics as well as practitioners as a major concern of
organizations.
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
1980
1982
1984
1986
1988
1990
1992
1994
1996
1998
2000
2002
2004
2006
2008
Year
Frequency of the papers
Fig. 2. Frequency of the papers per year.
Fig. 3. shows the frequency of the studies authored in
different countries. The US is the most dominant country
with 77% of the authors affiliated to American universities.
Singapore is the next most prolific source of papers with 10
of the studies followed by Canada with 3. Additionally as Fig.
3. suggests, the North America continent is dominant in the
research on IS turnover (83%) followed by Asia (15%).
56
10
1 1 1 3
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
US Singapore S outh Africa Austria Hong Kong Canada
Country
Frequency of the papers
Fig. 3. Frequency of the papers per countries.
The studies on IS turnover have been produced in different
academic departments. As Fig. 4 proposes, the Business
department is dominant with 32 papers out of 72 followed by
the IS department with 24 papers and the Management
department with 12 papers. The reason is that IS is a young
field of study and IS research used to be conducted in the
business and management departments before establishment
of IS departments.
Lecture
Notes on Software Engineering, Vol. 1, No. 1, February 2013
99
Fig. 1. Stages of the study selection process.
24
32
12
4
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
IS Business Management Others
Department Name
Frequency of the papers
Fig. 4. Frequency of the papers based on academic department.
As was discussed in section 2, our source of material for
systematic review includes peer-reviewed journal as well as
conference proceeding papers. Among 72 papers found, 46
are journal papers and 26 are conference proceeding papers.
About half of the papers are published in highly prestigious
IS journals: 11 are published in Information & Management,
7 in MIS Quarterly, 6 in Journal of Management Information
Systems, 4 in Communications of the ACM, and 3, 2 and 2
respectively in the Database for Advances in Information
Systems, Information System Research, and Journal of
Computer Information Systems.
Frequency of the papers in IS conferences
3
3
11
7
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
ICIS AMCIS ACM SIGCPR SIGMIS CPR
Conference Na me
Frequency of the papers
Fig. 5. Frequency of the papers in IS conferences.
With regard to papers in conference proceedings, ACM
SIGCPR is dominant in publishing on IS turnover with 11
papers out of 72 followed by SIGMIS CPR with 7 papers.
ICIS and AMCIS are in equal third place with 3 published
papers each (see Fig. 5.).
IV. RESULTS – THEORIES USED
In this section we briefly overview the major turnover
theories in the extant IS turnover literature. About 40% of
paper (29 out of 72) studied in this research have used at least
one theory. In total, 38 different theories have been applied,
used, or at least mentioned in our materials for systematic
review. Among them, Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs and Dual
Factor Theory have been used more frequently (5 and 4 times
respectively). There are also 8 other theories which have
been used 2 times: (Social) Exchange Theory,
Person-to-Organization Fit Theory, Discrepancy Theory,
Attribution Theory, Job Characteristics Theory, Theory of
Needs, and Theory of X and Y. The other 27 theories have
been mentioned only once. In the rest of this section, we
provide a brief introduction to each of the theories which has
been mentioned, used, or applied at least twice in the extant
literature on IS turnover.
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. In Maslow’s hierarchy of
needs [7] five hierarchical needs are identified: physiological,
safety, social, esteem, and self-actualization. If there is a
significant unmet need that could be satisfied by changing the
job, the worker is likely to leave the current company and
switch to a better company. Consequently, it is very
important for companies to align career incentives with
employee needs to lower their turnover rate.
Dual Factor Theory. Herzbero et al. [8] claimed that
humans have two sets of needs: the need as an animal to keep
away from pain, and the need as a human being to grow
psychologically. In other words, fulfilling an employee’s
motivation and hygiene could lower the chance of turnover.
Social Exchange Theory. Employees tend to form social
exchange relationships with others so long as they feel they
are receiving benefits out of that [9].
Person-to-Organization Fit Theory. This theory
acknowledges that high rate of compatibility between an
employee and an organization could negatively affect his/her
chance of turnover [10].
Discrepancy Theory. This theory advocates the need to
consider individual differences [11]. According to this theory,
job satisfaction depends on the match between job outcomes
(e.g. salary and reward) and those desired by the employee.
The closer the match between job outcomes and an
employee’s job expectations, the more the job satisfaction.
Also, a large discrepancy could lead to a lower job
satisfaction and a small discrepancy could result in a higher
job satisfaction.
Attribution Theory. This theory acknowledges that an
employee’s attribution for a negative event such as image
violation or work exhaustion could build a basis for his/her
decisions about how to stop it [12].
Job Characteristics Theory. This theory tells that job
characteristics such as task variety, task significance,
feedback, and autonomy encourage employees to show a
behavior that leads to positive organizational outcomes [13].
Theory of Needs. This theory posits that when an
employee’s needs (e.g. affiliation, achievement and power
needs) are met at an organization, turnover is lower [14].
Theory of X and Y. In fact this is two theories, they are
theories of human motivation developed by Douglas
McGregor at the MIT Sloan School of Management that have
been used in organization studies like human resource
management (HRM), and organizational development. They
explain two very different attitudes toward employees’
motivation [15]. The theory posits that a company follows
either first or the second approach. Theory X posits that
management assumes that employees are inherently lazy and
tend to avoid work if they can. As a result, they need to be
supervised and a control system should be developed. Theory
Y acknowledges that managers think that, given the right
conditions, most of employees incline to do their job well.
Human Capital Theory. This theory acknowledges that
employees’ education and experience render them more
marketable, and as a result more able to turnover [16].
Lecture Notes on Software Engineering, Vol. 1, No. 1, February 2013
100
V. CONCLUSIONS
This study reports a systematic review of the literature on
IS/IT turnover. Based on the results of our systematic review,
we note that the topic of IS turnover have received increased
attention in recent years. Specially, after 1998 we see a huge
growth in the number of academic papers on the topic.
Moreover, most of the research on IS turnover has been done
in US followed by Singapore. Business, IS, and Management
are respectively the departments with the highest number of
papers in the area. In terms of theories, Maslow’s Hierarchy
of Needs and Dual Factor Theory are two more often used
theories in our set for systematic review.
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Amir Hossein Ghapanchi obtained his PhD in
Information Systems from the University of New South
Wales, Sydney. Prior to this, he completed his Master
degree in IT Engineering at Tarbiat Modares University,
Tehran. He also holds a Bsc in Industrial Engineering
from Isfahan University of Technology, Isfahan.
Currently, he is a lecturer at the School of Information and
Communication Technology, Griffith University,
Australia. Amir has served in several national information system projects.
His main research interests include health informatics, the management of
open source software projects, e-government planning and implementation,
and multi-criteria decision making (MCDM). Amir has published in several
prestigious management and information system journals such as
International Journal of Project Management, Journal of Systems and
Software, International Journal of Information Management, and Electronic
Markets. Amir has been an active member of the Institute for Integrated and
Intelligent Systems (IIIS) and Asia-Pacific ubiquitous Healthcare Research
Centre (APuHC).
Ahmad Reza Ghapanchi was born on February 24,
1991 at Isfahan, Iran. He has been doing a bachelor study
in computer engineering (software) at Isfahan University
since 2009. Prior to that, he has been studying
mathematics. Ahmad has got a very high rank in Iranian
National University Entry Exam. He has done his
industrial project at Metako. Ahmad has also been
involved in several software projects. His research interests include software
engineering, network management, programming, as well as soft aspects of
information technologies such as information system adoption and
evaluation.
Amir Talaei-Khoei received his PhD from the
University of New South Wales (UNSW) in Australia
and holds a Master of Science of Information
Technology from the Royal Institute of Technology
(KTH) in Sweden. Prior to joining academia, Amir
was involved in industrial e-health projects. Dr.
Talaei-Khoei has taught for ICT, Software
Engineering, Information Systems , MBA and
Executive MBA programs in Australia and Europe.
He is a faculty member at University of the Sunshine Coast. Since 2008, he
has been an active member of Asia-Pacific ubiquitous Healthcare Research
Centre (APuHC). As a part of the research at APuHC, he has been involved
in different national and international projects in ehealth. Amir was a
member of the research board for developing the scoping document of the
long term strategic IT plan for Aged Care Industry IT Council (ACIITC) in
Australia. Dr Talaei-Khoei's research mainly focuses on software agents,
computer supportive cooperative work and game technologies in healthcare
scenarios. He was born in 1982 in Iran.
Babak Abedin has received his PhD in Information
Systems from the University of New South Wales in
Sydney, Australia. Prior to this, he completed his
Master degree in IT Management at the University of
Tehran and did his Bachelor in Industrial Engineering
at Iran University of Science and Technology, both in
Iran. He is currently an information systems lecturer
and a ACG postgraduate coordinator at Faculty of
Business and Economics at Macquarie University in Sydney. His research
interests are e-learning, Social Media, and E-commerce and has published
extensively in various journals in these areas.
Lecture Notes on Software Engineering, Vol. 1, No. 1, February 2013
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