Psychological resources of occupational well-being and success in software developers

Abstract

Background. The information technologies field (IT) is one of the fastest growing. However, the specifics of work organization in IT (Agile methods) requires special professional and psychological skills, which raises an important research question on how to ensure job success while maintaining the occupational well-being of software developers.

Objective. The study had its purpose to analyze the contribution of psychological resources (hardiness, tolerance to uncertainty and self-efficacy) to the occupational well-being and success of software developers.

Sample. 102 professionals (developers, analysts, and testers), 77 men and 25 women, average age — 29.7, average work experience in IT — 7 years.

Methods. The data were collected by means of “Occupational well-being questionnaire” (Rut, 2016), “The new uncertainty tolerance questionnaire” (Kornilova, 2010), “Hardiness short version test” (Osin, Rasskazova, 2013), “Self-efficacy scale” (Romek, 1996), and ad hoc developed questionnaire “Self-assessment of job success”.

Results. The level of occupational well-being significantly correlated with self-assessment of job success (r = 0.719; p ≤ 0.01), hardiness (r = 0.800; p ≤ 0.01), self-efficacy (r = 0.649; p ≤ 0.01), and negatively — with interpersonal intolerance (r = –0.504; p ≤ 0.01). Uncertainty tolerance correlated with well-being and success at the mean level (r = 0.294 and r = 0.267 respectively, p < 0.01). Regression model for well-being included hardiness, self-efficacy, and uncertainty tolerance (R2 = 0.708, F = 79, p < 0.001).

Conclusion. The obtained correlations of well-being and success with psychological resources reflect different aspects of software developers' job tasks, which allows to attribute hardiness and self-efficacy to the universal resources while tolerance to uncertainty — to the special resources for successful work in Agile.

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