This paper reports on a study exploring the motivations of professional software workers. We hypothesized that extrinsic motivation is more important to software professionals of today than to those of fifteen to twenty years ago, and that among those in the field today, it is most important for those who had been in the profession for the shortest time. Conversely, we hypothesized that intrinsic motivation is less important to software professionals of today than to those of fifteen to twenty years ago, and that among those in the field today, it is least important for those who had been in the profession for the shortest time. We also expected to find that hours of recreational computer use would be positively correlated with intrinsic motivation and negatively correlated with extrinsic motivation.
A review of the literature uncovered a number of studies of DP/MIS personnel which showed that they have high growth needs. This indicates that DP/MIS personnel are concerned with intrinsic factors. We found no longitudinal surveys studying the motivation of computer professionals.
Analysis of data from studies in 1969-70 and 1972-73 [26, 27] suggested that at the times of these studies intrinsic motivations were more important to software professionals than to the general workforce, and extrinsic motivations less important. However, the numbers of respondents in these studies who were software professionals were so small (three and eight, respectively) that the results are not statistically valid.
We designed and carried out a Survey of Software Professionals (“SSP”), obtaining responses from local businesses and through the Usenet worldwide computer network. After analyzing data from the SSP and from the earlier studies we have concluded (1) that the longer a person has been in the software field the less important extrinsic motivations are to them; (2) that intrinsic motivation has not changed over time, nor does it change the longer one remains in the profession; and (3) software professionals who engage in recreational computer use have higher intrinsic motivation than those who do not.
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