Organizations globally are spending millions of dollars replacing information technology (IT) professionals. IT professionals, who possess technical skills and competencies that interconnect business processes, are costly to replace. There are direct and indirect costs associated when an IT professional leaves, such as advertising fees, headhunting fees, and project delays. Lacking a firm understanding of the reasons why IT professionals leave their positions, many business leaders do not have strategies for reducing turnover rates. Building on Herzberg's motivation-hygiene theory and March and Simon's process model of turnover, this exploratory multiple case study sought to identify the strategies that business leaders view as essential for retaining IT professionals. Semistructured interviews were conducted with 10 IT managers in the Houston, Texas, area; participants were selected using a purposive sampling technique. Thematic analysis revealed eight strategies for addressing turnover: compensation, opportunity and advancement, rewards and recognition, relationship with the supervisor and coworkers, training and development, communications, meaningful work, and flexible work schedule. Findings from this study may contribute to positive social change by providing business leaders with more insight about how they can retain IT professionals. The high turnover among IT professionals affects individuals, families, communities, organizations, and the economy. Implementing strategies to reduce turnover rates can help keep individual employees and their family members together and reduce the unemployment rates.

As the market for talent becomes more competitive it is important to create a comprehensive employer brand (EB). A comprehensive EB ensures that organizations will get the most out of the resources they spend. EB can be seen in many aspects and context. Organizational culture provides an important framework as it includes the collective thoughts, ideas and assumptions within a group and was therefore chosen as the analytical context. Two important aspects within EB that is highlighted in this study is; retention and attraction. The aim of this thesis was to investigate how a company that is about to create a strategy for employer branding reasons around the usage of an EB as well as which opportunities and challenges both managers, employees and thesis students face within the areas of attraction and retention. The authors chose a case study to gain a deeper understanding from both an employee and an employer perspective. The case study company is in IT and is rapidly growing which created a need for an employer brand. The data is from managers, employees and students. The students refer to a group of thesis students at the company. This group was added to increase understanding for attraction. The method section provides combined data sets including interviews, a survey, a previous study of organizational values, a review of formal company documents and informal meetings with field notes. The data was then analyzed within the analytical context culture and the two aspects retention and attraction. The data is then discussed and compared with the literature, explaining similarities and differences from the results. The first two research questions were answered by describing the organization from different points of view; management, employees and students. The third research question investigated what opportunities and challenges existed to develop an EB from the two perspectives with regard to the three areas; culture, retention and attraction. The different office locations had different cultures with a mutual customer focus. The thesis found that the unclear vision, mission and goals created different directions and messages for potential employees. The compensation and benefits package is appreciated but the most important factor for case company employees are “inspiring coworkers”. The employees also appreciate varied and challenging work tasks together with flexibility and work life balance. The authors found that the talent managers were not held accountable for company guidelines regarding career plans as most employees had little or no career plan.

Self-presentations are goal-directed acts designed by individuals to convey particular images of their selves and thereby influence how they are perceived and treated by various audiences (Goffman, 1959). Recent literature suggests that individuals are increasingly interacting with their workplace colleagues on personal networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. In such overlapping interactions, individuals often move swiftly and in an asymmetric fashion between physical-virtual settings and personal-professional life. Presumably, diverse self-presentations across physical-virtual settings and personal-professional life may create conflicts or tensions. Drawing on 31 semi-structured interviews, this thesis explores the self-presentations of Indian IT professionals on social media. Overall, the analysis suggests that in most cases, respondents enacted diverse self-presentations across physical-virtual settings and personal-professional life. In such cases, they expressed concerns that overlapping audiences may view their self-presentations on social media out-of-context and inevitably misconstrue their professional image. From a theoretical perspective, the thesis illustrates that individuals who exercise region behavior experience cognitive discomfort when they enact self-presentations on social media as overlapping self-presentations are inevitable. From a practical perspective, empirical evidence suggests that employees take their interactions on social media seriously and thus dispute managers arguments that interacting on social media is merely a time-pass.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-12-01T19:11:34Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 121347.pdf: 1559539 bytes, checksum: 81608e7c195a81b09cd4c6a5dda4813d (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-12-19 / Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico / In the state of Santa Catarina, the Information Technology sector stands out for its constant growth, but to keep it highly trained professionals are needed, so that the shortage of manpower hinders the growth of this sector. Thus, companies need to develop mechanisms to retain their professional knowledge, as these professionals in some organizations are the cornerstone for the development and manufacture of the final product. Thus, through the systematic review, we attempted to list the factors that aid in the retention of IT professionals and verify them through the case study of a software development organization and questionnaires with the academic computer science undergraduate. Based on the data collected was possible to measure factors that are considered essential for retention of IT professionals, which should be analyzed by the companies in order to maintain, when relevant its stable professional staff. / No estado de Santa Catarina, o setor de Tecnologia da Informação se destaca pelo seu constante crescimento, entretanto para mantê-lo são necessários profissionais altamente capacitados, de modo que a escassez de mão de obra atrapalha o crescimento desse setor. Portanto, as empresas necessitam desenvolver mecanismos para reter seus profissionais do conhecimento, já que esses profissionais em algumas organizações são a peça fundamental para a elaboração e confecção do produto final. Assim, através da revisão sistemática, buscou-se elencar os fatores que auxiliam na retenção dos profissionais de TI e verificá-los através do estudo de caso em uma organização de desenvolvimento de software e pela aplicação de questionários com acadêmicos da graduação de ciências da computação. Com base nos dados coletados foi possível aferir fatores que são considerados fundamentais para retenção dos profissionais de TI, os quais devem ser analisados pelas empresas a fim de manterem, quando pertinente seu quadro de profissionais estável.

Background: People have long sought to be able to influence and form their own work lives to align more with their personal beliefs and satisfy their needs and wants. Due to digitalization, opportunities for professionals to do so have increased, and theories such as job crafting have emerged. There are however some questions as to how IT-professionals in different work settings utilize these strategies to craft a better work life for themselves, along with questions regarding their freedom to be able to craft. Research Problem: Increased autonomy for workers has enabled them to take more control of their work lives and given them more choices in how they work, but there are still questions regarding how workers are enabled to job craft in different settings, within the same IT-industry. By applying job crafting theory to this specific context, the authors seek to address how workers pursue a more satisfying and fulfilling work life. Research Purpose: This thesis investigates IT-professionals' abilities and methods of crafting and designing a more satisfying and fulfilling work life. Research Question: How do IT professionals in different work settings craft their jobs in order to achieve a more fulfilling and satisfying work situation? Research Method: To best be able to meet the purpose of this study, a qualitative study was conducted by the authors. Data collection was made through semi-structured interviews with professionals working in the IT-industry, revolving around the topic of job crafting and autonomy. The authors committed to a sampling strategy and reached out to suitable respondents that fit the purpose of the study. Open ended questions were used in the interviews to ensure no bias from the authors. The data is analyzed through the Gioia method. Conclusion: The conclusion that can be derived from this study is that individuals are enabled to utilize the job crafting variations to give themselves the chances to have a more satisfying and fulfilling work life. An individual cannot be totally autonomous, because it is influenced by factors out of the individual's control, e.g the employing organization or the client the individual is working for. But it is evident that IT-professionals are utilizing the three types of job crafting to be able to put themselves in the best situation possible for them to create a fulfilling and satisfying work situation.

With the dissemination and widespread use of AI-enabled work tools by IT professionals, the Flow experience, a well-established theory in psychology has crept into the copywriting of such tools. Therefore, this paper aimed to investigate whether AI-enabled work tools influence the Flow experience of IT professionals as they complete work tasks. To gather in-depth data, an interview study was conducted on 12 professionals consisting of UX and/or UI designers and various technical and managerial roles in the IT field. Following Braun and Clarke’s thematic analysis and under an abductive approach, a mix of focused and open codes shaped themes that were then further situated among similar literature. These are presented as theoretical and practical implications. Overall results have indicated that AI-enabled tools mostly do not influence Flow, but that Flow is not entirely absent. Theoretical implications contribute knowledge about the influence of AI-enabled work tools on Flow, some key points discussed include clear goals, exploratory behaviour, broad answers and loops, among others. Practical implications offered design recommendation alongside other published literature, suggesting, for instance, to create effective task context, personalized to workstyle, defining model defaults, and more. Generally, the outcome points to the need for scepticism when faced with unsupported assertions of AI-enabled tools influencing Flow among IT workers, and a need for more published work on the intersection. This is especially prudent given the growing field of AI for the consumer market, where unique opportunities and challenges arise with the usage of AI technologies.

Background: Artificial intelligence has risen to prominence as a subject of study. The pace of artificial intelligence evolution in Bangladesh's IT industry is increasing by the day. In Bangladesh's IT Industry, artificial intelligence (AI) offers enormous potential. Despite the huge potential and advantages of AI implementation or adoption, Bangladesh's IT industry is still failing to move forward with its AI implementation. Objectives: The objective of this study is to identify the main factors that disturb the implementation of AI in the IT Company of Bangladesh. Novelty: In Bangladesh, most of the AI-related research conducted by focusing existing Scope of AI in the Bangladesh, as Bangladesh is in the initial phase of AI Adoption, this paper, therefore, sought to find out the factors that inhibit IT Industry to implement AI. Method: A quantitative method is used to find the results of the study. This paper reports on the results of an online survey questionnaire involving 51 IT professionals from a large IT company of Bangladesh about their perception regarding AI to find out the challenges. Results: Result indicates certain major challenges in AI implementation in Bangladesh’s IT Industry like Lack of AI skills and Incomplete knowledge or understanding regarding AI's capabilities and limitations, Internal culture Lack of Financial investment, , Data management, Lack of technological Infrastructure, Lack of top managerial support, Lack of legal and ethical framework, Non AI Approaches are sufficient by encapsulating them into three challenges context-organizational, environmental and technical barriers using IS theory TOE framework. Contributions: The study offers Insights to policymakers, executives and top-level managers to pay attention of adopting AI in IT Industry of Bangladesh by overcoming the challenges, besides further research can be conducted on how Bangladesh IT industry can overcome the AI implementation challenges. Conclusion: As Bangladesh is progressing with Technology, hence this is a high time to identify the major challenges that inhibit the AI Implantation in Bangladesh’s IT Industry. Policymakers, executives and top-level managers should find a proper solution policy to mitigate the challenges and adapt AI to boost up IT Industry of Bangladesh.

In recent years, Artificial Intelligence (AI) has emerged as a transformative technology, reshaping industries and prompting significant shifts in how businesses operate. The widespread adoption of AI technologies is influenced by various factors, including technological readiness, organizational culture, and external perceptions. Media plays an important role in shaping these perceptions by framing AI in specific ways. Understanding how AI is framed in media and comparing these frames with the perspectives of IT professionals can provide valuable insights into the alignment or discrepancies between public discourse and professional practice. The purpose of this study was to unveil the frames held by Swedish news media, and which of these frames best reflected IT-Professional’s perception of AI. Additionally, we aim to explore the complex interplay of media frames and how such frames potentially shape individual held technological frames of reference surrounding AI adoption. The goal of the study was to contribute to existing research by expanding upon TFR and bridging the existing gap between framing theory, media frames, and AI adoption. We employed a qualitative study with an exploratory, multi-method approach. By drawing inspiration from Framing Theory, we conducted an analysis of Swedish newspaper articles, as well as semi-structured interviews with Swedish IT-Professionals. Our data sample included 946 newspaper articles and 5 interview participants. Through this method, we provided a broader context for the interview findings, which allowed for in-depth insights into how media frames reflect the frames held by IT-Professionals within their professional environments. Based on our findings, we uncovered nine dominant frames depicted in the Swedish news media; Disruptive Technology, Human-Machine Collaboration, Accelerate AI Adoption, Operational Optimization, Ethical Concerns, Regulation & Transparency, Strategize Before AI Adoption, Challenges of AI Adoption, and Dystopian Technology. Additionally, we identified five of these frames to best reflect the perception IT-Professionals had towards AI; Human-Machine Collaboration, Accelerate AI Adoption, Operational Optimization, Regulation & Transparency, and Challenges of AI Adoption.