IT Firms Should Proactively Induce Organisational Citizenship Behaviours Amongst Their Employees: An Antidote for High Employee Turnover in the IT Industry

By, Dr Shalini Chandra (Dr)| Professor (Information Systems) SP Jain School of Global Management.

Given the high employee turnover rates among information technology (IT) professionals, employee retention remains a prime concern for organizations in the IT sector. Positive employee attitudes toward their jobs and organizations are crucial in reducing turnover rates. Thus, it is of managerial interest to examine strategies for developing positive employee attitudes, significantly reducing employee turnover in the IT industry. 

To develop positive employee attitudes, organizations from traditional industries have primarily focused on addressing the basic motivational needs of their employees. However, IT work is highly transient regarding knowledge content, and IT employees are expected to innovate and evolve within their roles in the constantly changing technological milieu. Such marked differences in IT work structures compared to other professions mandate a supportive work environment where IT professionals feel connected to the organization and stay with it long enough to contribute. 

Traditional industries often retain their employees by providing opportunities to go beyond their call of duty and participate in non-mandated extra-role behaviors known as Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB). However, in the IT industry, where the turnover rates are very high, waiting for employee OCB to develop organically over time may not be a viable option to ensure employee retention. Consequently, many IT organizations, instead of nurturing OCB over time, attempt to develop positive employee attitudes by proactively engaging them in voluntary citizenship behaviors. However, it is not well understood whether resources spent by IT organizations for such efforts translate into positive work attitudes, facilitating employee retention. Hence, our research team, comprising me and two collaborators (Prof Shirish C Srivastava from HEC Paris and Prof Damien Joseph from NTU Singapore), explored the relationship between the level of proactively induced OCB among IT employees and their positive work attitudes.

Proactively Induced OCB Among IT Employees.

This view of OCB being proactively induced contrasts with most traditional non-IT organizations, where OCB develops over time. Thus, instead of viewing OCB as a result of an employee’s association with the organization over time, i.e., positive attitudes influencing citizenship behaviors, we posit that OCB induced by IT firms influences positive work attitudes among IT employees. 

In the IT industry, IT firms can proactively induce the OCB by inculcating essential practices of employee sustainability (participating in activities to maintain or improve their health and well-being), social participation (participating in workday activities that are not directly related to core job tasks), civic virtue (taking action and accepting responsibilities in the interest of the organization, voice (participating in activities, making suggestions, or speaking out for the organization’s benefit), and helping (voluntarily helping co-employees with work-related issues or problems). 

The Meaning of IT Work (MoW)

IT employees, being knowledge workers, are cognitively driven to evaluate the meaning of their IT work, including their extra-role behaviors at work. Such cognitive appraisals of MoW mediate the influence of OCB on their positive attitudes of affective commitment. 

IT professionals MoW is the meaning IT professionals make of their work. Their work goals may be spread over a broader range of incentives, which can include not only the usual extrinsic rewards but also intrinsic rewards related to opportunities for learning, growth, and professional achievements. IT employees assign three key meanings to their work: intrinsic (enjoyment and sheer interest in doing the work), extrinsic (external rewards and recognition from work), and social (social impact of their work). We suggest that MoW will play a mediating role in explaining the relationship between OCB and positive work attitudes.

The Study

This research aimed to theorize the mechanisms through which IT employees’ engagement with proactively induced OCB could translate into the development of positive attitudes regarding affective commitment to the organization and job satisfaction. Affective commitment is the employee’s psychological or emotional connection to and identification with the organization. At the same time, job satisfaction is a pleasurable or positive emotional state resulting from an individual’s job appraisal. 

To conduct the study, we employed a two-wave survey method with a large sample of IT professionals working in technical roles in a large multinational IT organization headquartered in India and the US and operating in 17 European, North American, and Asian countries. This organization is among the top 20 IT service firms in India.

The Findings and Key Takeaway for IT Firms

The results indicated that the level of OCB induced among IT employees is positively associated with their work attitudes of affective commitment to their organization and job satisfaction. Further, the results found the underlying mechanisms of cognitive evaluations of work through which IT professionals’ OCB translates into positive work attitudes. This study has implications for strategizing and managing the meanings that IT professionals derive from their work, including their core duties and extra-role behaviors.

1. The results from our study make it clear that organizational managers in IT firms should also consider promoting citizenship behaviors among their employees by motivating them to attend community events and encouraging them to participate in informal events. Developing altruistic behaviors among IT professionals is critical in the fast-changing, knowledge-based IT industry.
2. IT organizations can carefully plan and strategize their work by proactively inducing OCB in addition to core tasks to keep employees motivated despite the uncertainties in the IT industry. The proactively induced organizational behaviors can keep these employees happy and satisfied, increase employee retention, and thus contribute to positive growth in the organization.
3. Organizations can enhance extrinsic MoW for their employees by having a well-planned reward system, including monetary and tangible rewards and non-tangible rewards such as recognition from coworkers and supervisors for extra-role behaviors. Such initiatives will encourage employees to voluntarily engage in altruistic activities in the organization.
4. Employees will continue to be socially motivated if their organizations genuinely attempt to connect their employees to the beneficiaries of their work. Such attempts may be through organizational news platforms, knowledge-sharing opportunities, and events that will allow them to see the real impact of their work.