Results of study of programmers' motivation

[Harry I. Rubin]

Quite a while ago, my partner Ed Hernandez and I carried out a
survey concerning the motivations of software professionals.  Part
of the survey was done by posting the survey on the net and asking
people to e-mail (or print and U.S. mail) their responses to us.
Well, we received a large number of responses.  We analyzed the
survey responses (as well as some results reported in the literature)
and wrote a paper, which was presented at a conference on research
in the field of computer personnel.

Several people suggested posting the results of our research to
the net.  That sounds like a good idea, so we are now doing that.
This message is being posted in same the groups in which the survey
was originally posted.  Following please find, first, the citation
for the conference paper, and, second, a copy of the abstract of
the paper.  The abstract states the hypotheses we were investigating,
and the conclusions we reached.

If the abstract gets you interested in reading the paper, please
consult the conference proceedings in which the paper is published.
I am sure the proceedings are available at many university libraries
and at many firms' technical libraries.  If not, they can be ordered
from the ACM.  If, after reading the full paper, you have questions,
you may contact myself or Ed.

Thank you to those who helped us by completing the survey.

						-- Harry I. Rubin

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Title:  Motivations and Behaviors of Software Professionals
Authors:  Harry I. Rubin and Edward F. Hernandez
Journal:  Proceedings of the 1988 ACM SIGCPR Conference
	on Management of Information Systems Personnel
Date:  April 7-8, 1988
Pages:  62-71
Availability:  available from ACM Press, order number 443880

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			ABSTRACT

     This paper reports on a study exploring the motivations
of  professional  software  workers.   We  hypothesized that
extrinsic motivation is more important to  software  profes-
sionals  of  today  than to those of fifteen to twenty years
ago, and that among those in the field  today,  it  is  most
important  for  those who had been in the profession for the
shortest time.  Conversely, we hypothesized  that  intrinsic
motivation  is  less  important to software professionals of
today than to those of fifteen to twenty years ago, and that
among  those  in  the field today, it is least important for
those who had been in the profession for the shortest  time.
We also expected to find that hours of recreational computer
use would be positively correlated with intrinsic motivation
and negatively correlated with extrinsic motivation.

     A review of the literature uncovered a number  of  stu-
dies  of  DP/MIS  personnel which showed that they have high
growth needs.  This indicates that DP/MIS personnel are con-
cerned  with  intrinsic  factors.   We found no longitudinal
surveys studying the motivation of computer professionals.

     Analysis of data from studies in  1969-70  and  1972-73
[26,  27]  suggested  that  at  the  times  of these studies
intrinsic motivations were more important to  software  pro-
fessionals  than  to  the  general  workforce, and extrinsic
motivations less important.  However, the numbers of respon-
dents  in these studies who were software professionals were
so small (three and eight, respectively)  that  the  results
are not statistically valid.

     We designed and carried out a Survey of  Software  Pro-
fessionals   (``SSP''),   obtaining   responses  from  local
businesses and through the Usenet  worldwide  computer  net-
work.   After  analyzing data from the SSP and from the ear-
lier studies we have concluded (1) that the longer a  person
has  been in the software field the less important extrinsic
motivations are to them; (2) that intrinsic  motivation  has
not  changed  over  time,  nor does it change the longer one
remains in the profession; and  (3)  software  professionals
who  engage in recreational computer use have higher intrin-
sic motivation than those who do not.

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