The Impact of Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivators on IT professionals. Case of Latvia

Abstract

Research background: In contemporary environment and conditions of globalization, IT professionals become significant part of labour force for every organization, which needs to be competitive in the market. This paper, on one hand, demonstrates how employees can be involved in production process, and, on the other hand, it helps to observe the interconnection between theory and practical application of management. Purpose of the article: The purpose of the research was in defining and determining the influence of intrinsic and extrinsic motivators for IT professionals in Latvia. Methods: The data for the research was collected with the help of online survey held in December 2019 using online survey panels. The targeting criteria for the respondents was the employment on position of IT employee, company located in Latvia and employed full time. Sample size was 1500 respondents. The research used factor analysis, which allowed defining intrinsic and extrinsic motivators and evaluating their significance and method of multidimensional linear regression to determine the influence of personal characteristics of employees on types of motivation. Findings & Value added: Factor analysis of motivations shows that there are five types of motivators, which make IT professionals work more productively, stay late at work if needed and do the best they can to solve the task set by their management. These are material stimulators, respect, responsibility, fear and self-realization. The results of the research can be well interpreted with the help of McGregor Theory, who demonstrated that there is a need of combination of extrinsic and intrinsic motivators. The findings can be used in building appropriate motivation strategy for IT professionals.