Short-term Affair or Long-term Commitment?: An Investigation of Employees without IT Background in IT Jobs

Abstract

The IT profession is constantly changing. The rapid development of technology and the high demand for IT specialists has led to a broader and more diverse profile of IT professionals with fewer boundaries regarding organizations and occupations. As a result, companies have encouraged the migration of employees with different backgrounds into the IT sector. Drawing on the theory of the boundaryless profession, we explore this transformation in IT careers. By studying 355 career sequences of IT professionals in Germany, we investigate the career mobility of employees without an IT background working in IT jobs. Our results show that only around one-third of employees without an IT background remained in IT for the long-term. The majority of the sample, however, either returned to their original sector or moved to another after a few years in IT. Our study contributes to a better understanding of the boundaryless IT profession and sheds light on the role of employees without an IT background in IT jobs.