Jaime B. Windeler

The influence of ethnicity on organizational commitment and merit pay of IT workers: the role of leader support

Projections of looming shortages in the supply of skilled IT workers, along with high employee replacement costs, make employee attraction, retention and support a pressing concern for organizations. One potential remedy for these shortages is to focus more attention on historically underrepresented groups. We explore ways organizations can support ethnic minority IT professionals to enhance their career success. Integrating affective, cognitive and social perspectives through affective events theory and social exchange theory, our objective is to explore the implications of ethnic minority status for the relationship between leader support (i.e., mentoring and leader–member exchange (LMX)) and subjective and objective indicators of career success (i.e., organizational commitment and merit pay) among IT workers. To test the model, we conducted a field study of 289 IT workers in a Fortune 500 company. Our results showed that LMX influenced organizational commitment for ethnic minorities, while career mentoring and LMX influenced organizational commitment for majorities. Psychosocial mentoring influenced merit pay for ethnic minorities, while neither LMX nor mentoring influenced merit pay for majorities. Our study contributes to the literature on IT personnel issues by exploring how and why these leader support mechanisms enhance organizational commitment and merit pay for IT workers. Moreover, we demonstrate that ethnicity is an important consideration for researchers studying organizational commitment, merit pay, mentoring and LMX. Our findings suggest that managers can boost organizational commitment among IT workers by focusing on LMX and career mentoring. Moreover, they may want to place particular emphasis on psychosocial mentoring and interventions to enhance LMX for their ethnic minority IT workers.

Organizational commitment of IT workers: leader support and differences across gender and race

The purpose of this study is to determine how psychosocial mentoring, career mentoring and leader-member exchange (LMX) contribute to organizational commitment for IT workers, as well as how these relationships differ according to race and gender. We draw on affective events theory, as well as the literature on IT personnel and leader support to explicate these relationships. We conducted a field study of 289 IT workers in a Fortune 500 company. LMX and career mentoring explained 28% of the variance in organizational commitment. Additionally, we found that the impact of career mentoring on organizational commitment is stronger for women than for men and that career mentoring influences organizational commitment for non-minority races but not minority races. Finally, the influence of LMX on organizational commitment is stronger for minority races than for non-minority races. This study contributes to the body of literature on IT personnel issues by exploring whether and how organizational support mechanisms enhance organizational commitment for private sector IT workers. We also demonstrate that race and gender are important considerations for researchers studying organizational commitment, mentoring, and LMX. Our findings suggest that managers can boost organizational commitment among IT workers by focusing on LMX and career mentoring. Moreover, they may want to place particular emphasis on career mentoring programs for women and on the development of supervisor/employee relationships for their minority race IT workers.

Person–Organization and Person–Job Fit Perceptions of New IT Employees: Work Outcomes and Gender Differences

Pay 1) Salary level 2) The opportunity to become financially wealthy 3) The amount of pay 4) A good salary 5) Receiving enough pay to live well 6) Opportunities to receive more than my normal pay for good work 7) An opportunity to earn a high income 8) Periodic wage raises 9) Have pay increases that keep up with the cost of living 10) Opportunities to earn more than my regular paycheck Promotion 1) Opportunities for advancement 2) Promotion opportunities 3) Chances for advancement 4) Opportunities to attain higher rank in the organization 5) Chances to climb the corporate ladder 6) Opportunities to move up in the organization 7) Support for helping me gain a higher position in the organization 8) The possibility of promotions 9) Chances to move up the organizational hierarchy 10) Opportunities to gain a higher position in the organization