{"title":"Towards an Embeddedness View of IT Professionals: An Agenda for the Next-Generation Global IT Workforce","authors":"Michael Dinger, Julie T. Wade, J. Thatcher","doi":"10.1080/1097198x.2023.2237377","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Imagine, for a moment, that you are a software developer for a major bank. Things were different when you started some 20 years ago. Everyone came to work at the office. You discussed development projects with your team face to face, sometimes in formal meetings, sometimes just in casual chats. You had desks near each other. People went to lunch together from time to time or grabbed a drink after work on occasion. Some of your colleagues were “work friends,” if not actual friends. You lived in the same area, commuted to the same office, and had some good times together. Time passed and things changed. Some colleagues left for greener pastures. A few got promoted into managerial roles. Some retired. Instead of directly replacing many of those that left or retired, your employer now supplements IT work with contract labor sourced internationally from a country about a dozen time zones away. You have an IT contractor that is assigned to work with you, and you’re supposed to enhance your own productivity by giving them tasks that help you get your projects done. Understandably, there is a bit of a language and culture barrier, but you like them, and they work hard. They’ve been very upfront about appreciating the work and opportunity. Still, this isn’t really what you had in mind when you picked a career in software development – you never wanted to be a manager, even of just one person. You want your contractor to have work so they can help support their family, but you didn’t want to be responsible for someone else’s welfare. They regularly ask you for more work. Sometimes you have something else you can give them, and sometimes you don’t. You feel bad when you don’t. Also, if you’re honest, usually their work is solid, but sometimes it . . . isn’t. So you must consider how important something is before handing it off, because you need to do the critical work yourself. This isn’t the only thing that’s different now. More and more people started working remotely, but this really boomed post-Covid. Now, pretty much everyone works remotely. Given the new paradigm and how little you need to go in, you recently moved over an hour from the office. Meetings are all on Zoom and don’t happen that often. When they do happen, your team lead is the only one who turns their camera on. Occasionally. What used to be daily chats and a regular lunch with long-time work friends is now the occasional e-mail with newer colleagues who you have yet to meet in person. It’s not all bad, obviously. Your work-life balance is great, and, in general, you feel happier than ever. You still get just as much done, if not more. However, you don’t have a stressful commute, you have incredibly flexible hours, and you’ve realized how much more you can focus on your family and personal life when you don’t have to spend so much time in the office every week. Not being in the office much, you do wonder if you’ve become more expendable because you worry management now has you and your IT peers in the “out of sight, out of mind” category. But on the other hand, you’re sure there are a lot of jobs out there just like this that would let you do your development work from home. Would it matter that much if you were doing this for a different employer instead? Times are changing for information technology (IT) professionals across the globe. The work itself is similar, but the nature of how the work is done has changed rather dramatically. We know a few dominant factors contribute to this software developer’s feelings of uncertainty and responsibility. For decades we’ve talked about how the world is increasingly digital. Technology permeates every facet of our lives, with ever-increasing complexity and ubiquity (Benbya, Nan, Tanriverdi, & Yoo, 2020). The extent of digitalization has received significant focus regarding its broad effects on business and on society in general (Almeida, Santos, & Monteiro, 2020). Ramifications range from the manner in which businesses hire and manage employees, engage with customers, deliver products/services, and can impact almost any business process (Parviainen, JOURNAL OF GLOBAL INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY MANAGEMENT 2023, VOL. 26, NO. 3, 173–180 https://doi.org/10.1080/1097198X.2023.2237377","PeriodicalId":45982,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Global Information Technology Management","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.0000,"publicationDate":"2023-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Global Information Technology Management","FirstCategoryId":"91","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1097198x.2023.2237377","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"INFORMATION SCIENCE & LIBRARY SCIENCE","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Imagine, for a moment, that you are a software developer for a major bank. Things were different when you started some 20 years ago. Everyone came to work at the office. You discussed development projects with your team face to face, sometimes in formal meetings, sometimes just in casual chats. You had desks near each other. People went to lunch together from time to time or grabbed a drink after work on occasion. Some of your colleagues were “work friends,” if not actual friends. You lived in the same area, commuted to the same office, and had some good times together. Time passed and things changed. Some colleagues left for greener pastures. A few got promoted into managerial roles. Some retired. Instead of directly replacing many of those that left or retired, your employer now supplements IT work with contract labor sourced internationally from a country about a dozen time zones away. You have an IT contractor that is assigned to work with you, and you’re supposed to enhance your own productivity by giving them tasks that help you get your projects done. Understandably, there is a bit of a language and culture barrier, but you like them, and they work hard. They’ve been very upfront about appreciating the work and opportunity. Still, this isn’t really what you had in mind when you picked a career in software development – you never wanted to be a manager, even of just one person. You want your contractor to have work so they can help support their family, but you didn’t want to be responsible for someone else’s welfare. They regularly ask you for more work. Sometimes you have something else you can give them, and sometimes you don’t. You feel bad when you don’t. Also, if you’re honest, usually their work is solid, but sometimes it . . . isn’t. So you must consider how important something is before handing it off, because you need to do the critical work yourself. This isn’t the only thing that’s different now. More and more people started working remotely, but this really boomed post-Covid. Now, pretty much everyone works remotely. Given the new paradigm and how little you need to go in, you recently moved over an hour from the office. Meetings are all on Zoom and don’t happen that often. When they do happen, your team lead is the only one who turns their camera on. Occasionally. What used to be daily chats and a regular lunch with long-time work friends is now the occasional e-mail with newer colleagues who you have yet to meet in person. It’s not all bad, obviously. Your work-life balance is great, and, in general, you feel happier than ever. You still get just as much done, if not more. However, you don’t have a stressful commute, you have incredibly flexible hours, and you’ve realized how much more you can focus on your family and personal life when you don’t have to spend so much time in the office every week. Not being in the office much, you do wonder if you’ve become more expendable because you worry management now has you and your IT peers in the “out of sight, out of mind” category. But on the other hand, you’re sure there are a lot of jobs out there just like this that would let you do your development work from home. Would it matter that much if you were doing this for a different employer instead? Times are changing for information technology (IT) professionals across the globe. The work itself is similar, but the nature of how the work is done has changed rather dramatically. We know a few dominant factors contribute to this software developer’s feelings of uncertainty and responsibility. For decades we’ve talked about how the world is increasingly digital. Technology permeates every facet of our lives, with ever-increasing complexity and ubiquity (Benbya, Nan, Tanriverdi, & Yoo, 2020). The extent of digitalization has received significant focus regarding its broad effects on business and on society in general (Almeida, Santos, & Monteiro, 2020). Ramifications range from the manner in which businesses hire and manage employees, engage with customers, deliver products/services, and can impact almost any business process (Parviainen, JOURNAL OF GLOBAL INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY MANAGEMENT 2023, VOL. 26, NO. 3, 173–180 https://doi.org/10.1080/1097198X.2023.2237377
期刊介绍:
The Journal of Global Information Technology Management (JGITM) is a refereed international journal that is supported by Global IT scholars from all over the world. JGITM publishes articles related to all aspects of the application of information technology for international business. The journal also considers a variety of methodological approaches and encourages manuscript submissions from authors all over the world, both from academia and industry. In addition, the journal will also include reviews of MIS books that have bearing on global aspects. Practitioner input will be specifically solicited from time-to-time in the form of invited columns or interviews. Besides quality work, at a minimum each submitted article should have the following three components: an MIS (Management Information Systems) topic, an international orientation (e.g., cross cultural studies or strong international implications), and evidence (e.g., survey data, case studies, secondary data, etc.). Articles in the Journal of Global Information Technology Management include, but are not limited to: -Cross-cultural IS studies -Frameworks/models for global information systems (GIS) -Development, evaluation and management of GIS -Information Resource Management -Electronic Commerce -Privacy & Security -Societal impacts of IT in developing countries -IT and Economic Development -IT Diffusion in developing countries -IT in Health Care -IT human resource issues -DSS/EIS/ES in international settings -Organizational and management structures for GIS -Transborder data flow issues -Supply Chain Management -Distributed global databases and networks -Cultural and societal impacts -Comparative studies of nations -Applications and case studies