42 THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN JOB SATISFACTION AND TURNOVER INTENTION OF THAI SOFTWARE PROGRAMMERS IN BANGKOK, THAILAND Prinn Sukriket International Graduate School of Business, University of South Australia Abstract The main objective of this study was to investigate job satisfaction variables related to turnover intentions of software programmers employed in the IT industry in Thailand. Samples were selected from programmers working for firms in Software Park, Bangkok. Self-administered questionnaires were sent via hyperlink to 800 software programmers; 400 valid samples were used for analysis in this study. The findings showed that 3 factors, benefits, nature of work and supervision were related to turnover intention in terms of the pull factor. For the push factor, only two factors, nature of work and job conditions were associated with turnover intention. Pull factors were shown to have a stronger impact on turnover intention than push factors. Keywords: Job Satisfaction, Software Programmers, Push Factors, Pull Factors      ⌦⌫   ⌦  ⌫      ⌫⌫     ⌫        ⌫ ⌦  ⌫  ⌦⌫        ⌦   ⌦ INTRODUCTION The past decade has been the most volatile period for firms that use or deal in information tech- nology (IT) or use IT services. Most of the prob- lems are related to personnel (Agarwal, Prebuddha & Ferratt, 2001), i.e., demand and supply, selec- tion, recruitment, and more specifically, retention. Since the late 1990s, the labour market for IT pro- fessionals has been hit by shortages, and IT levels of compensation have skyrocketed by 15-20% annually. Job hopping has become the standard of the industry, and only eight out of ten IT positions can be recruited and filled with qualified candidates (McNee, Morello, Zidar & Smith, 1998). The prob- lems in the IT market will continue for years to come, and it is expected that the demand of the markets that need IT skills will continue to exceed supply (McNee et al., 1998). Turnover can be a concern for all sectors but it is more worrying in the IT industry. The turnover of IT professionals can have disastrous effects on organizations due to the loss of business process knowledge along with acquired technical skills. The rationale model of turnover suggests that job dis- satisfaction is the first step toward leaving an or- ganization. Rouse (2001) stated that due to the incredible demand for qualified IT professionals “unsolicited job offers are constantly bombarding members of this group. Even though there is noth- ing dissatisfying about their current position, the new offer may be too good to forgo” (p.285).