Duration of It Human Capital Employment

Investment in information technology (IT) and the strategic benefits derived from successful systems are critical to the large, modern enterprise. Delivering these systems requires talented information systems (IS) professionals and the human capital assets they bring to an employment relationship. However, these relationships frequently fail at inopportune times, to the detriment of the employing firm. This raises questions about how long a firm and an individual can expect an IT employment relationship will last. The questions are made more significant by the large investment and uncertain recovery period associated with skills employed in a technologically dynamic environment. Drawing on the theory of human capital from economics (e.g., Becker, 1962), we develop an explanation for the duration of employment among IS professionals. We perform empirical tests of related hypothesis using a duration model with time-varying covariates and observations on over 600 IS professionals. The results suggest that the duration of an employment relationship can be explained in terms of the content of the IT human capital involved, the equity of the employment relationship and other organizational factors.