The Turnover and Retention of it Managers in Rapidly Changing Organizations

Abstract

The explosion of information technology (IT) during the 1990s created tremendous opportunities and challenges for IT professionals. As organizations expanded and integrated their information technology into their business functions and made greater use of the Internet as a business tool and marketing channel, the demand for IT managers to guide these efforts created unprecedented career opportunities. Industry sources suggest that even amid the peaks and valleys of turbulent IT business cycles, there is a chronic shortage of top-quality IT managers in North America and that this situation will persist well into the foreseeable future. These supply-and-demand dynamics make it imperative for organizations to know why IT managers leave their positions and, using this knowledge, formulate effective retention strategies.