Factors influencing freelance intention of Sri Lankan IT employees

Abstract

With the COVID-19 pandemic, freelancing has become more popular in many sectors around the world due to unemployment, lack of job security, the flexibility of remote working, and increased demand from employers. The purpose of the study is to determine the drivers of the freelance intention of Sri Lankan IT employees. Convenience sampling was adopted as the sampling technique, and data was gathered from 384 IT employees engaged in freelancing via an online survey. SPSS Statistics 20 and Microsoft Power BI were used to interpret collected data, and correlation and multiple regression analysis were performed to test hypotheses. According to the results of hypothesis testing, Financial Motivation, Opportunity, and Primary Job-related Motivation have a positive and significant impact on the Freelance Intention of IT employees. These findings suggest that IT companies should focus on these factors when managing human resources. The originality of the study is the examination of the freelancing intention of Sri Lankan IT employees with the emergence of COVID-19. To create harmony between employer and employees, the author recommends prior recognition of drivers and form strategies accordingly and identify challenges in advance and mitigate potential performance issues for a win-win situation.