| The frequent changes in business environment, global industry, and increased competition have led organizations to outsource many business activities. Globally, outsourcing continues to grow and has led to changes and challenges for information technology (IT) professionals. The purpose of this quantitative, causal-comparative study was to determine if organizational sector and IT professionals' perceptions of outsourcing have an effect on job satisfaction, occupational stress, and turnover intentions. Participants were 230 IT professionals from public and private sector organizations in the Washington, DC area. The Outsourcing Perception Survey, Job Satisfaction Survey, Job Stress Survey, and Employee Turnover Intention to Leave were utilized to measure job related variables. Separate Analyses of Variances with outsourcing perceptions and organizational sector as factors were used to assess for significant differences in job satisfaction, occupational stress, and turnover intentions. There were no significant differences based on organizational sector in job satisfaction (F(1, 226) = 0.05, p = .821), occupational stress (F(1, 226) = 0.19, p = .663), or turnover intentions (F(1, 226) = 0.79, p = .374). There were no significant interaction effects based on organizational sector and outsourcing perception in job satisfaction ( F(1, 226) = 0.21, p = .647), occupational stress F(1, 226) = 0.48, p = .491), or turnover intention (F(1, 226) = 0.70, p = .403). However, IT professionals with positive perceptions of outsourcing showed significantly greater levels of job satisfaction (F(1, 226) = 9.91, p = .002) and lower levels of occupational stress (F(1, 226) = 46.37, p < .001) and turnover intentions ( F(1, 226) = 92.12, p < .001) than those with negative perceptions. Altogether, these data suggest that while organizational sector does not affect work related variables, positive outsourcing perceptions positively affects the employee related variables of job satisfaction, occupational stress, and turnover intentions. These findings are applicable to human resources and IT managers for making informed decisions on outsourcing strategies and developing programs to mitigate outsourcing resentments by means of enhancing outsourcing perceptions. Furthermore, these findings suggest the importance of future exploration of the effect of outsourcing perceptions on other workforce and industries. |
