Sensemaking of Retention Mechanisms in the Information and Communication Technology Sector

Sammanfattning

This study explores how employees in the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector make sense of retention mechanisms and how these interpretations contribute to their job embeddedness. Based on qualitative interviews with employees at multinational ICT firms, the findings suggest that retention mechanisms are effective only when perceived as valuable and meaningful by employees. The global war for talent shapes this sensemaking process by creating high expectations around compensation, flexibility, benefits, prestige, and stock options. However, through institutional isomorphism, many of these mechanisms have become standardized across the sector, thereby losing their distinctiveness as firm-level retention tools and simultaneously creating a sector-level “golden cage”. Employees feel mobile between ICT firms but perceive leaving the sector as more costly. In contrast, motivator factors such as career growth, autonomy, and developmental opportunities were more closely connected to organizational attachment. Through the lens ofjob embeddedness, the study finds weak organizational links, dynamic fit, and limited firm-level sacrifice. Overall, the thesis shows that retention depends less on the implementation of mechanisms than on how employees interpret them in a competitive, increasingly standardized ICT labor market.