The Dual-sided Effect of Project Failure on IT Professionals

The effects of project failure on IT professionals have not received much attention in IT research. A failed project evokes negative emotions and therefore could trigger turnover, which has negative influences from the perspective of IT human resource management. However, the failure of IT projects could also have positive influences as professionals might learn from the failed project. This paper focuses on analyzing this dual-sided effect of project failure on IT professionals. We develop hypotheses that will be tested with a large data set from an IT service provider in future research. We expect to contribute to theory by analyzing whether project failure triggers turnover and by analyzing whether IT professionals learn from failed projects and perform better in the future.

[1]  M. Kendall,et al.  The Logic of Scientific Discovery. , 1959 .

[2]  Henry Petroski,et al.  To Engineer Is Human: The Role of Failure in Successful Design , 1986 .

[3]  Gary James Jason,et al.  The Logic of Scientific Discovery , 1988 .

[4]  Terence R. Mitchell,et al.  An Alternative Approach: The Unfolding Model of Voluntary Employee Turnover , 1994 .

[5]  Mark Keil,et al.  Pulling the Plug: Software Project Management and the Problem of Project Escalation , 1995, MIS Q..

[6]  Zbigniew H. Przasnyski,et al.  Learning from abandoned information systems development projects , 1995, J. Inf. Technol..

[7]  B. Galliers,et al.  The Journal of Strategic Information Systems , 1996 .

[8]  Terence R. Mitchell,et al.  The Unfolding Model of Voluntary Turnover: A Replication and Extension , 1999 .

[9]  David Baccarini,et al.  The Logical Framework Method for Defining Project Success , 1999 .

[10]  Kathleen M. Eisenhardt,et al.  DYNAMIC CAPABILITIES, WHAT ARE THEY? , 2000 .

[11]  Gerald E. Ledford,et al.  “How to Keep Me”—REtaining Technical Professionals , 2001 .

[12]  K. T. Yeo,et al.  Critical failure factors in information system projects , 2002 .

[13]  Fred Niederman,et al.  The impact of gender differences on job satisfaction, job turnover, and career experiences of information systems professionals , 2002, SIGCPR '02.

[14]  Jason Bennett Thatcher,et al.  Turnover of Information Technology Workers: Examining Empirically the Influence of Attitudes, Job Characteristics, and External Markets , 2002, J. Manag. Inf. Syst..

[15]  Diane B. Walz,et al.  Identifying Exceptional Application Software Developers: A Comparison of Students and Professionals , 2003, Commun. Assoc. Inf. Syst..

[16]  Robert J. Kauffman,et al.  Nearing the Threshold: An Economics Approach to Pressure on Information Systems Professionals to Separate from Their Employer , 2003, J. Manag. Inf. Syst..

[17]  Dianne Hall,et al.  Theoretical Value Belief, Cognitive Ability, and Personality as Predictors of Student Performance in Object-Oriented Programming Environments , 2006 .

[18]  David Gefen,et al.  Business Familiarity as Risk Mitigation in Software Development Outsourcing Contracts , 2008, MIS Q..

[19]  Soon Ang,et al.  Turnover of Information Technology Professionals: A Narrative Review, Meta-Analytic Structural Equation Modeling, and Model Development , 2007, MIS Q..

[20]  Michael J. Gallivan,et al.  How personality type influences decision paths in the unfolding model of voluntary job turnover: an application to IS professionals , 2007, SIGMIS CPR '07.

[21]  Fred Niederman,et al.  Testing and extending the unfolding model of voluntary turnover to it professionals , 2007 .

[22]  Terence R. Mitchell,et al.  5 Turnover and Retention Research: A Glance at the Past, a Closer Review of the Present, and a Venture into the Future , 2008 .

[23]  June M. Verner,et al.  Why did your project fail? , 2009, Commun. ACM.

[24]  Judy McKay,et al.  Learning from a Strategic Failure , 2009 .

[25]  Michael J. Gallivan,et al.  Another road to IT turnover: the entrepreneurial path , 2009, Eur. J. Inf. Syst..

[26]  D. Shepherd,et al.  Negative Emotional Reactions to Project Failure and the Self-Compassion to Learn from the Experience , 2009 .

[27]  David G. Allen,et al.  Retaining Talent: Replacing Misconceptions With Evidence-Based Strategies , 2010 .

[28]  Christina Ling-Hsing Chang,et al.  The study of the turnover of MIS professionals - The gap between Taiwanese and US societies , 2010, Int. J. Inf. Manag..

[29]  Katerina Voutsina,et al.  International Conference on Information Systems ( ICIS ) 2010 FROM IT EMPLOYEE TO IT ENTREPRENEUR : THE CONCEPT OF IT ENTREPRENEURIAL EPIPHANY , 2017 .

[30]  D. Shepherd,et al.  Moving Forward from Project Failure: Negative Emotions, Affective Commitment, and Learning from the Experience , 2011 .

[31]  Katerina Voutsina,et al.  What should i understand?: the concept of shift of understanding, a quote-based analysis , 2012, SIGMIS-CPR '12.

[32]  D. Shepherd,et al.  Project Failures Arising from Corporate Entrepreneurship: Impact of Multiple Project Failures on Employees' Accumulated Emotions, Learning, and Motivation , 2013 .

[33]  Dirk Basten,et al.  Eliminating Failure by Learning from It - Systematic Review of IS Project Failure , 2013, ICIS.

[34]  Helmut Krcmar,et al.  The relationship of personality models and development tasks in software engineering , 2014, SIGSIM-CPR '14.

[35]  D. Shepherd,et al.  How Does Project Termination Impact Project Team Members? Rapid Termination, ‘Creeping Death’, and Learning from Failure , 2014 .

[36]  James M. Vardaman,et al.  Analytical mindsets in turnover research , 2014 .

[37]  Helmut Krcmar,et al.  When Does Learning Pay Off? The Relationship of Organizational Learning and ITO Vendor Profitability , 2014, ICIS.

[38]  Soon Ang,et al.  Turnover or Turnaway? Competing Risks Analysis of Male and Female IT Professionals' Job Mobility and Relative Pay Gap , 2015, Inf. Syst. Res..

[39]  Helmut Krcmar,et al.  Determinants of vendor profitability in two contractual regimes: an empirical analysis of enterprise resource planning projects , 2015, J. Inf. Technol..

[40]  Helmut Krcmar,et al.  Are we already in a mature ITO market? A longitudinal study on the effects of market maturity on ITO vendor project performance , 2015, ICIS.

[41]  Janice Lo,et al.  The information technology workforce: A review and assessment of voluntary turnover research , 2015, Inf. Syst. Frontiers.

[42]  Helmut Krcmar,et al.  The role of Transaction Cost Economics in Information Technology Outsourcing research: A meta-analysis of the choice of contract type , 2016, J. Strateg. Inf. Syst..