Candatten et al. Engagement of IT Professionals whit Their Work Proceedings of the Nineteenth Americas Conference on Information Systems, Chicago, Illinois, August 15-17, 2013. 1 Engagement of Information Technology Professionals with Their Work Franciane Candatten Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Paraná fcandatten@hotmail.com Soraya Juliane da Silva Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Paraná soraya.juliane@yahoo.com.br Maria Alexandra Viegas Cortez da Cunha Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Paraná maria.cunha@pucpr.br Cristiano de Oliveira Maciel Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Paraná cristiano.maciel@pucpr.br Renato da Costa dos Santos Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Paraná rrenatinho@yahoo.com.br ABSTRACT Personal engagement with work is the maximum, deliberate and simultaneous use of physical, cognitive and psychological effort in the execution of the individual’s role in his or her work (Kahn, 1990). The subject is relatively new and the way engagement should be operationalized- whether in one or three dimensions – is still a matter of discussion. The purpose of this article was therefore to verify the relationship between the engagement of information technology professionals with their work and the nature of the task, operationalizing the construct in three dimensions: the physical, psychological and cognitive dimension. In addition, this study aimed to verify the concept of engagement on a different field of investigation than the ones employed to date. The survey with 613 subjects and the Exploratory Factorial Analysis enabled the empirical validation of the three dimensions of engagement. Regression Analysis demonstrated a positive relationship between the nature of the task and engagement and also pointed out antecedents for each of the three dimensions of engagement. Keywords Physical engagement, psychological engagement, cognitive engagement, nature of the task, IT professionals. INTRODUCTION Personal engagement with work is an issue that has only recently been raised by the literature. The most cited article is that of Kahn (1990), who defined engagement as the full realization of working activities with the maximum, deliberate and simultaneous use of physical, cognitive and psychological effort in the execution of the individual’s role in his or her work. Although Kahn (1990) defines the phenomenon with three dimensions, some authors operationalize engagement as one- dimensional (Rich, Lepine and Crawford, 2010) and the definition of the term also presents ambiguity (Macey and Schneider, 2008; Thomas, 2006). Even though engagement is already identified as an antecedent or consequent of many organizational phenomena, the scarcity of empirical research justifies this study (Macey and Schneider, 2008; May, Gilson and Harter, 2004; Saks, 2006). This article emphasizes two important aspects of engagement that have been previously neglected: the three-dimensionality (Catsouphes and Costa, 2008) and the influence of environmental characteristics on the phenomenon. This situational character of engaged behavior suggests that the nature of the task affects the degree in which each dimension of engagement is employed. The field of information technology (IT) is a favorable field of research because of the nature of the task of its professionals. These tasks are in constant flux because of the instable and dynamic environment. In addition, organizations are increasingly dependent on business practices based on technology. The IT business is therefore complex and its professionals need specific technical knowledge and constant improvement because of the speed in which technology is changing (Ono and Binder, 2010). The ability to work remotely, distances individuals from their employer and weakens the bonds within organizations. The individual commits to his career and no longer to his employer (Capelli, 1999). In most cases, technology is associated with concerns about machines and processes. Individuals are put in the background. Training and development of dedicated IT teams are lost in discussions about hardware, software, telecommunications and the outsourcing of services.