Looking into the Antecedents of the Transformation of IT Jobs. A Country-based Perspective

Abstract Technology is changing at an exponential rate. As a result, it does have a disruptive life on society and our lives. It changes our personal lives, socialization, and interaction with people and businesses. Technology has changed and does continue to change the way we work. Along with the four industrial revolutions, many jobs have disappeared, more jobs have been created, and almost every job was transformed by automation. The 4th industrial revolution leading to Industry 4.0 is powered by artificial intelligence, robotics, Internet of things. The Information Technology (IT) industry and IT professionals primarily drive this transformation. While information technology specialists contribute with the technology they build to change their world, technology is transforming the profession responsible for this transformation. The paper looks at how digital transformation impacts the transformation of IT jobs, how government policies and managerial strategies impact the transformation of IT jobs and how employees and organizations are responding with investment in skills development. The research relies on a questionnaire-based survey with 132 Romanian IT professionals, students and computer science professors representing small and large organizations. Seven out of the nine hypotheses were supported by the data, confirming that digital transformation impacts the transformation of jobs, particularly IT jobs, and that this drives the need to build new technical and soft skills.