Ethical perception and job satisfaction of software developers

Abstract

Software development is a domain that impacts numerous facets of the world. Careers in software development offer attractive financial compensation. However, the nature of software development jobs often requires sacrifices that may reduce job satisfaction, particularly due to ethical implications in the workplace. This paper examines how ethical perception is related to the job satisfaction of software developers. Using unique data from a 2018 survey of software developers, this paper employs ordinal logistic regression to measure the relationships between job satisfaction and various aspects of ethical perception, while controlling for age, gender, race and ethnicity, country, education level, undergraduate major, employment status, and salary. Job satisfaction among software developers is found to be positively related to ethical perception. Developers who uphold ethical standards by considering the ethical implications of the code they write, declining to write unethical code, and whistleblowing express greater job satisfaction. This study contributes to the field of disciplinary-based Knowledge Management (KM) by offering insights into the relationship between ethical perception and job satisfaction for software developers. The results can be applied in managerial decisions to improve employee engagement, retention, and productivity.