Human capital and employment: Separation and retention in the information technology workforce

Recent research highlights the role that investments in new information technologies (IT) play in creating business value and executing business strategy. Successful implementation of this IT-enabled strategy rests on the performance of information systems (IS) professionals. Consequently, understanding "IT human capital" and the behavior of IS professionals within the employment relationship is crucial to organizational performance. Researchers, managers, and senior executives are particularly concerned about whether competent members of an IT workforce will remain with, or separate from, the organization. This dissertation research presents a theoretical perspective and empirical results that explain why IS professionals leave their employer, when this separation will occur, and an approach to assessing the likely impact of employment policy changes before implementing such changes. This work differs from existing IS research on employment and the IS professional by employing an economics perspective and by introducing analysis methods not previously employed in the literature on IS professionals. Data from payroll, human resources, and other systems used in the research provide observations on over 1,000 IS professionals employed in highly autonomous divisions of a large mid-western employer firm. Empirical tests of hypotheses apply binomial logit and duration models to observed separation behavior and relevant covariates from. The data show that several previously unstudied factors contribute to the understanding of variation in separation behavior and employment duration. These include variation in the techno-centric properties IT human capital and the extent to which individual employment relationships are equitable. This information can also provide a basis for assessing IT employment policy alternatives. The results clearly indicate the crucial role played by active management of the human capital asset by IT professionals within the employment relationship.