CAREER MOTIVATION, CAREER APPRAISAL AND CAREER PLANNING ACTIONS OF ENTRY-LEVEL IT PROFESSIONALS IN SINGAPORE

Abstract

b16677602.PDF Singapore is moving towards an economy characterized by the growing dominance of information intensive services. Subsequently, effective management of the growing corps of Information Technology (IT) professionals is becoming a key concern of many organizations. Managers need to understand IT professionals' needs, wants, career aspiration and expectation to effectively motivate and retain these salaried professionals. A study of the career motivation, career appraisal and career planning actions of IT professionals may shed some light on this area. The study revealed that entry - level IT professionals were generally career motivated and that there were some differences based on sex. age, bread - winner status, work nature and industry sector. It was also found that these salaried professionals were less concerned with family - related issues. This study moreover supported previous research regarding IT professionals' perception of success. The five most frequently cited factors for success reflected IT professionals' high growth needs. Overall, the IT professionals respond fairly positively about their present career. Among the career motivation and organizational factors, six were found to affect the professionals' career appraisal. These are, in order of importance, management philosophy, superior's influence, career goal setting, career resilience, superior's expectation and feedback, and job exposure.