Models of motivation in software engineering

Motivation in software engineering is recognized as a key success factor for software projects, but although there are many papers written about motivation in software engineering, the field lacks a comprehensive overview of the area. In particular, several models of motivation have been proposed, but they either rely heavily on one particular model (the job characteristics model), or are quite disparate and difficult to combine. Using the results from our previous systematic literature review (SLR), we constructed a new model of motivation in software engineering. We then compared this new model with existing models and refined it based on this comparison. This paper summarises the SLR results, presents the important existing models found in the literature and explains the development of our new model of motivation in software engineering

Social Exchange Model between Human Resource Management Practices and Innovation in Software Engineering

This study examines the relationship between human resource management practices and innovation in software engineering. We use social exchange theory to investigate how human resource management practices influence the innovative behaviors of software developers through the mediation of affective organizational commitment. The results show that developmental appraisal, externally or equitable reward, and comprehensive training increase developers affective organizational commitment, which in turn positively affects their innovative behaviors

Organizational justice, role stressors job satisfaction and turnover intention among IT professions in Thailand's ICT industry

Although turnover intention has been studied widely in Western countries, such studies are still small in number in Asia countries like Thailand. The aims of this quantitative research were: to empirically determine the significant predictors of organizational justice (distributive justice and procedural justice) and role stressors (role ambiguity, role conflict, work-overload and work-family conflict); to examine the mediating effect of job satisfaction on the relationship between predictors and turnover intention, and to investigate the applicability of the Social Exchange Theory (SET) in explaining turnover intention in Thailand. A survey was conducted among 342 IT professionals in 21 ICT organizations located in Thailand‟s ICT industry‟s four sub-sector (Computer Hardware, Computer Software, Technology Information (IT) Services and Communication). Data were analyzed using the Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). Out of the 13 hypotheses regarding turnover intention, seven had significant direct effects (distributive justice, procedural justice, role ambiguity, role conflict, work-overload to job satisfaction; job satisfaction to turnover intention). The finding of this study revealed that there is a positive significant relationship between distributive justice and procedural justice with job satisfaction. This study also revealed that there is a negative significant relationship between role ambiguity, role conflict, work-overload and work-family conflict with job satisfaction. This study found a statistically negative significant relationship between job satisfaction and turnover intention. The study also found that job satisfaction was a full mediator of the relationship between distributive justice, procedural justice, role conflict and work-family conflict with turnover intention. Finally, job satisfaction partially mediated the relationship of role ambiguity and work-family conflict with turnover intention. The present study also highlighted the implications of the study, future research work as well as its limitations

Career orientations and turnover intentions of information systems professionals in South Africa

Bibliography: leaves 93-103.Managing Information Systems (IS) personnel has frequently been cited as a major challenge for organisations, particularly with respect to reducing and controlling the high rate of turnover that IS personnel have historically displayed. In the past, with demand for qualified IS personnel outstripping supply, alternative job openings were plentiful and organisations found it difficult to attract and retain sufficient staff. However, the last few years have seen significant cutbacks in IS spending, resulting in declining growth rates and a reduced demand for IS personnel. Although the South African IS job market does not appear to be as severely affected as in other parts of the world, and there are still pockets of high demand worldwide, it seems unlikely that the IS industry will return to its former glory in the foreseeable future. Despite these stringent market conditions, organisations continue to be plagued with high, and even more surprisingly, increasing turnover rates. This trend is particularly perturbing for organisations that are highly dependent on IS because of its negative implications. Employee turnover is costly and disrupting, often leading to delays in project completion, there is a loss of valuable expertise and productivity of the IS department is reduced. Although, this research project only considered IS personnel turnover at the individual level, there are many other factors related to the work and external environments that are believed to affect IS personnel turnover in South Africa. However, these factors which include organisational structure, perceived job market and government policy, are very difficult to measure and are often beyond the control of organisations endeavouring to reduce and control turnover; and as such were not explicitly studied

Understanding turnover intentions and behavior of Indian information systems professionals: A study of organizational justice, job satisfaction and social norms

Despite the phenomenal growth projected for the Indian information technology (IT) industry, one of the biggest challenges it faces is the high rate of turnover in offshore Indian-based supplier firms (Everest Research Group 2011). In this dissertation, we explored the following determinants of turnover intentions—social norms job attributes, job satisfaction, organizational alternatives, first order supervisory justice dimensions (distributive, procedural, interpersonal and informational justice) and second-order organizational justice measured by the first order justice dimensions. The research design was longitudinal to assess turnover behavior and its relationship with turnover intentions. Telephonic interviews were conducted with 75 Indian IS professionals based in India. Ten months later the respondents were contacted again to determine their actual turnover behavior. Data was quantitatively analyzed using PLS graph. Qualitative analysis using content analysis was also performed to gain deeper insights. Seven out of the 11 hypothesized relationships were supported. Three out of 4 dimensions of justice were found to be significantly and negatively related to turnover intentions- distributive, procedural and informational justice. Also, the second-order latent construct of overall organizational justice was found to be negatively related to turnover intentions. The hypothesized relationships between social norms and turnover intentions and between organizational alternatives and turnover intentions were not supported. Job attributes for tasks not involving client interaction (programming, testing and project management tasks) was found to be negatively related to job satisfaction. Finally, turnover intentions was found to positively relate to turnover behavior. We made important contributions to the literature of turnover by being one of the few studies actually measuring turnover behavior. Also, we addressed a gap in the literature of IS turnover of studying IS populations across different nations. We contributed to theory by testing a model of turnover that had new constructs not tested before, like overall organizational justice (second-order) and supervisory focused four first-order justice dimensions, and social norms. For future research, revised model of turnover relevant for Indian IS professionals is proposed-this involved adding new constructs like work life balance, stress, organizational satisfaction and removing constructs that did not find support in Indian contexts like organizational alternatives and social norms

The Role of Information Systems to Support Improvisation during Emergencies

This paper discusses the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) to support improvisation in hospital emergency response. Important characteristics of emergencies and improvisation are identified. Real-time decision support, communication and coordination, and training for improvisation have been identified as three key areas where ICTs can support the use of improvisation. This paper suggests that the documented plans, procedures, and policies to handle emergency situations in hospitals can complement the process of improvisation rather than forbidding or impeding it. Implications for research and practice are discussed

Human Capital of IT Professionals: A Research Agenda

Information Systems researchers have studied various aspects of the role of human capital in the IT workforce such as the definition of IT professionals, human resource practices for managing IT professionals, returns to human capital, human capital and innovation in IT industries, and turnover among IT professionals. This panel argues that the field is at crosswinds of change due to factors such as rapidly changing technologies, organizational processes, technology delivery mechanisms such as cloud computing, new forms of organization such as virtual teams and social networks, outsourcing, offshoring, globalization, and a new generation of IT professionals entering the workforce. These changes in the environment for IT work will affect the roles, jobs, skills and careers of IT professionals and will prompt more inquiry from IS researchers in two main directions: one, some findings from prior research may not hold in this new environment and scholars will need to reexamine these. Two, these changes will raise additional issues, and call for new research on IT human capital. The objective of this panel is to present a framework to identify important trends and changes that will impact IT professionals and to define an agenda for future research on IT human capital

Information Technology, Improvisation and Crisis Response: Review of Literature and Proposal for Theory

Crisis response is generally acknowledged as a crucial aspect of crisis management. Crisis response often requires a need to improvise because the circumstances demand spontaneous innovation that departs from established procedures. Although previous research has acknowledged improvisation as a valuable component of crisis response, it has not provided adequate conceptual understanding of improvisation. Moreover, studies on the role played by information technology (IT) in crisis are inconsistent regarding the ways that IT may support improvised responses. As a result, few recommendations could be formulated to guide practitioners in using IT to respond to crises, thereby wasting crucial resources. This paper proposes a definition of improvisation that emphasizes its relationship to dynamic capabilities and organizational routines. Using this definition, we analyze the literature on crisis management. The results show that IT enables the reuse of existing resources in novel and spontaneous ways but also supports collaboration and leadership expertise

IT WAS A WAR THAT WORE OUT BOTH MEN AND WOMEN... - METAPHORS IN AN INFORMATION SYSTEM PROJECT

This study looks at metaphors from the perspective of cognitive metaphor theory. Using the theory developed by Lakoff and Johnson (1980) we examine the use of metaphors by project members in an information system (IS) project. The data was collected from 22 interviews. Interviews were conducted with a range of stakeholders, including representatives of users, software developers, experts and IT and service managers. The findings of this qualitative case study indicate that IS developers and experts use many kinds of metaphors to make sense of the IS project they work on. The findings also show that metaphor is pervasive in IS development work, not just in language but also in thought and action and various metaphors are used to make sense of the different phases of the project. It can be argud that the dominant metaphors of any given project will strongly affect the trajectory of the project. Thus the metaphors in use in a project should be a concern for project management and we suggest that emphasizing constructive metaphors could be beneficial for many projects

Medidas de productividad en los proyectos de desarrollo de software: una aproximación por puestos de trabajo

La productividad es una medida, principalmente económica, creada a finales del siglo XVIII. Desde entonces, numerosas modificaciones se han realizado sobre la definición inicial y se han incorporando a diversas áreas de conocimiento. Dentro de la Ingeniería del Software (IS), la productividad comenzó a ser objeto de estudio a finales de los años 70, casi de forma paralela a la concepción de la misma y al inicio del estudio de conceptos relacionados, tales como la estimación de esfuerzo. La medición de la productividad en IS ha sido ampliamente analizada a nivel de proyecto y organización, sin embargo a nivel de puesto de trabajo no ha sido tan investigada. En estos escasos estudios, las medidas utilizadas suelen ser las mismas medidas que las empleadas en niveles superiores de medición. En concreto, las medidas empleadas suelen ser ratios entre una medida de tamaño de producto (p. ej., líneas de código o puntos función) y una medida de esfuerzo o tiempo (p. ej., horas-hombre u horas). Este tipo de medidas son muy específicas y no reflejan la realidad del trabajo desempeñado en todo el proceso de desarrollo, ya que no tienen en cuenta las características inherentes a cada puesto de trabajo. Así pues, la eficacia de estas medidas, en este nivel de medición, parece estar en entredicho y la realización de estudios que aporten nuevas medidas de productividad en IS a nivel de puesto de trabajo cobra sentido. En la presente tesis doctoral se ha analizado la situación actual de la medición de la productividad en IS a nivel de puesto de trabajo con el objetivo de crear nuevas medidas. Para conseguir este objetivo se ha realizado un estudio del estado de la cuestión utilizando una metodología clásica de revisión de referencias junto con una revisión sistemática de la literatura. Una vez analizado el estado de la cuestión se ha planteado un conjunto de hipótesis relacionadas con la construcción de nuevas medidas de productividad: Hipótesis 1. En los puestos de trabajo involucrados en la ejecución de proyectos de desarrollo de software se emplean otras entradas, además del tiempo y el esfuerzo. Hipótesis 2. Las entradas utilizadas son distintas para cada puesto de trabajo involucrado en la ejecución de proyectos de desarrollo de software. Hipótesis 3. En los puestos de trabajo involucrados en la ejecución de proyectos de desarrollo de software se producen otras salidas, además de líneas de código y funcionalidad. Hipótesis 4. Las salidas producidas son distintas para cada puesto de trabajo involucrado en la ejecución de proyectos de desarrollo de software. Hipótesis 5. Las medidas de productividad más utilizadas a nivel de puesto de trabajo en los proyectos de desarrollo de software tienen una eficacia limitada para medir la productividad real de los trabajadores. Hipótesis 6. Es posible medir de forma más eficaz la productividad de los puestos de trabajo en los proyectos de desarrollo de software con nuevas medidas que combinen varios elementos: entradas, salidas y factores. Tras el análisis del estado de la cuestión, se ha realizado una fase de investigación cualitativa mediante el empleo de entrevistas a trabajadores de IS y un posterior análisis de contenido, con el fin de obtener información suficiente para: (1) contrastar las cuatro primeras hipótesis con información cualitativa, y (2) construir el medio de recogida de información para la siguiente fase de la investigación. Con respecto al primer objetivo, ha sido posible contrastar dos hipótesis (H1 y H3). En la segunda fase, mediante una metodología cuantitativa, se han contrastado las cuatro primeras hipótesis planteadas. Para la recogida de información se ha utilizado un formulario construido a partir de los resultados de la fase cualitativa. Los resultados de esta fase indican que en los puestos de trabajo analizados (programador, analista, consultor, y jefe de proyecto): se utilizan otros recursos además del tiempo, se producen otras salidas además del código fuente y la funcionalidad entregada al cliente. Además, se han encontrado diferencias en el grado de uso de las entradas y en la producción de las salidas, por lo que el uso de una misma medida de productividad para todos los puestos bajo estudio es, en principio, ilógico. Para contrastar las dos, y últimas, hipótesis se han construido nuevas medidas de productividad, teniendo en cuenta los resultados previos. En concreto, se ha utilizado Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) como metodología personalizable para medir la productividad; y se han realizado cuatro casos de estudio empleando dicha metodología. Los resultados tras los casos de estudio indican que mediante DEA es posible medir la productividad de los puestos de trabajo vinculados con los proyectos de desarrollo y mantenimiento de software de forma más eficaz que con las medidas más utilizadas. Además, esta metodología permite conocer los puntos de mejora para que los trabajadores menos productivos aumenten su productividad, lo que supone una gran ventaja frente a otras medidas de productividad si el objetivo de medir, como es lógico suponer, es mejorar la productividad, y no simplemente evaluarla. Así pues, se contrastan las dos últimas hipótesis y se insta, entre otras futuras líneas de investigación, a continuar con nuevos estudios que comparen el uso de DEA con otras medidas de productividad. Finalmente, se concluye que la medición de la productividad en los puestos de trabajo vinculados con los proyectos de desarrollo y mantenimiento de software continua siendo un reto. Para reducir la dificultad de éste, la presente tesis doctoral arroja luz aportando un marco de trabajo para analizar y plantear nuevas medidas de productividad, tanto en estos puestos de trabajo como en otros. ------------------------------Productivity is mainly an economic measure, created in the late eighteenth century. Since then, many changes have been made on its initial definition and have been incorporated into various areas of knowledge. Within Software Engineering (SE), productivity began to be studied in the late '70s. These efforts ran parallel to SE developments, such as effort estimation. Measuring productivity in SE has been extensively analyzed at the project and organization level; however job level has not been investigated with the same depth. In these few studies, the measures used are often the same ones than those used in higher levels of measurement. Specifically, the measures employed are usually ratios between a measure of product size (e.g., lines of code or function points) and a measure of effort or time (e.g., man-hours or hours). Such measures do not reflect the reality of the work performed throughout the development process because they do not take into account the inherent characteristics of each job. Thus, the effectiveness of these measures, in this measurement level, seems to be in question and studies that provide new measures of productivity at job level make sense. In this thesis we have analyzed the current state of productivity measurement at job level within SE with the goal of creating new measures. In order to achieve this objective a study of the state of the art has been carried out with a classical methodology along with a systematic review of the literature. After analyzing the state of the art, a number of hypotheses related to the construction of new productivity measures have been stated: Hypothesis 1. In the jobs involved in the implementation of software development projects other inputs are used in addition to time and effort. Hypothesis 2. The inputs used are different for every job involved in software development projects. Hypothesis 3. In the jobs involved in the implementation of software development projects other outputs are produced in addition to source code lines and functionality. Hypothesis 4. The outputs produced are different for every job involved in software development projects. Hypothesis 5. The most used productivity measures at job level in software development projects have limited effectiveness for measuring real productivity of workers. Hypothesis 6. It is possible to measure more effectively the productivity of jobs in software development projects with new measures that combine several elements: inputs, outputs and factors. After analyzing the state of the art, a qualitative phase has been performed using interviews with SE workers and a subsequent content analysis of them in order to obtain pertinent information: (1) to test the first four hypotheses with qualitative information, and (2) to build the information gathering instrument for the next phase of research. Regarding the first objective, it has been possible to test two hypotheses (H1 and H3). In the second phase, using a quantitative method, the first four hypotheses have been contrasted and accepted. For the information gathering a form constructed from the results of the qualitative phase has been used. The results of this phase indicate that the analyzed job positions (programmer, analyst, consultant, and project manager): use other resources in addition to time, and deliver other outputs in addition to source code and functionality delivered to the client. Also some differences in the degree of use of inputs and production of outputs have been found. Therefore, the use of the same measure of productivity for all positions under study is, in principle, illogical. To contrast the last two hypotheses new productivity measures have been built taking into account the previous results. Specifically, a customizable methodology for measuring productivity such as Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) was used in four case studies. The results after these studies indicate that using DEA is a mean to measure the productivity of job level for job positions related to the development and maintenance of software projects in a more effectively way. Furthermore, this methodology allows knowing the points for improvement for the least productive workers in order to increase their productivity. This knowledge is a great advantage over other productivity measures if the goal of measuring, as is logical to assume, is to improve productivity, not simply to evaluate it. So the last two hypotheses has been supported. Consequently we call, among other future research, to continue with further studies comparing the use of DEA with other measures of productivity. Finally, it is concluded that the measurement of productivity in job positions related with software development and maintenance projects remains a challenge. To reduce this difficulty, this thesis sheds some light on the topic by providing a framework to analyze and propose new measures of productivity for SE job roles.Presidente: María Belén Ruiz Mezcua; Vocal: Rafael Valencia García; Secretario: Edmundo Tovar Car