Recent statistics indicate that most organizations prefer to fill IT vacancies by rehiring IT professionals who previously worked in the organization. Less is known about what drives IT professionals to “turnback,” a term we define as returning to employment with a former employer. To explain this important and rarely considered IT job mobility behavior, we build on job embeddedness theory and on the concepts of shocks and job dissatisfaction from, among others, the unfolding model of voluntary turnover to develop the theory of IT professional turnback. We perform fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) of data collected from 248 IT professionals to draw conclusions about the intention among IT professionals to return to work for a former employer, and develop a midrange theory. Our results reveal two configurations contributing to high turnback intention and three configurations contributing to low turnback intention. Our model distinguishes between work shocks, personal shocks, and IT work shocks. IT shocks are a new category of shocks specific to the IT profession. We contribute theoretically by theorizing a behavior relevant to IT professionals and explaining attributes driving turnback intention.

中文翻译：

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转机意向：IT 专业人员重返前雇主意向的驱动因素分析

最近的统计数据表明，大多数组织更愿意通过重新雇用以前在组织中工作的 IT 专业人员来填补 IT 空缺。关于是什么驱使 IT 专业人员“回头”，我们将其定义为重返前雇主的工作岗位，人们知之甚少。为了解释这种重要且很少被考虑的 IT 工作流动行为，我们建立在工作嵌入理论和冲击和工作不满意的概念的基础上，其中包括自愿离职的展开模型，以发展 IT 专业转向理论。我们对从 248 位 IT 专业人士收集的数据进行模糊集定性比较分析 (fsQCA)，以得出有关 IT 专业人士重返前雇主工作的意图的结论，并发展出一个中等理论。我们的结果揭示了两种配置导致高折返意图和三种配置导致低折返意图。我们的模型区分了工作冲击、个人冲击和 IT 工作冲击。IT 冲击是特定于 IT 行业的一类新冲击。我们通过理论化与 IT 专业人员相关的行为并解释驱动回头意图的属性，在理论上做出贡献。