Factors leading to retention and organizational turnover in software engineering : a conceptual model

Abstract

Since several years the software engineering industry is facing high financial and intellectual loss due to employees frequently leaving the companies. Therefore it is important to understand the reasons and intentions of employees to counteract these factors and foster retention. There is a certain body of knowledge regarding retention and turnover from other domains, however the knowledge regarding software engineering is rather limited. This thesis proposes a conceptual model for turnover in the IT domain. It is based on knowledge collected in a comprehensive snowball literature research based on a tentative start set of papers from several domains. The model was then tested in the perspective of a company that is known as a good place to work by conducting an explorative questionnaire case study with several employees of said company. The results of the survey showed some support of the propositions, but there is no statistically significant evidence of the relationship between the factors and turnover or retention mainly because of the small size of the population sample. Nevertheless, several insights could be gained from the survey results, such as identifying social support as one of the most important personal aspects for many participants. These findings led to a revision of the model to better reflect the situation perceived from the survey results. This revised model requires another study to support it, though. Based on the findings of the study, the thesis closes with some suggestions regarding future research in the context of this project.