Factors influencing IS/IT staff retention: Some preliminary international comparisons

With the growing internationalization of businesses, and the increasing mobility of IS/IT professionals there is a need to understand the aspects of the work environment and the job that motivates these professionals. As more and more organization employ professionals from a range of different cultural backgrounds, the question arises as to whether or not the incentives structure, work features and motivators are the same for different cultural groups., This paper reports the results of a pilot study comparing attitudes of computing professionals from two countries (Australia and the Philippines) into those work environmental factors and motivators that act as incentives to remain with a company. One is a developing nation whilst the other is a developed nation but in both English is a dominant language. Exploratory factor analysis identified seven factors that attracted individuals to stay with a company. These factors were converted to composite variables results compared for the two countries. The similarities and differences are compared suggesting that a "one size fits" all approach to recruitment in IS may not be justified.