Organizational Influence Process in Software Process Improvement

In this paper we investigate organizational influence processes in software process improvement. We analyze an improvement effort through the lenses of organizational influence theory. Our analysis suggests that the framework can explain several significant organizational complexities in software process improvement. Further, the framework point to relevant actions for managers of software process improvement. This will have implications for the creation of effective software process improvement

Political Maneuvering During Business Process Transformation: A Pluralist Approach

For years, managers have tried to improve organizational performance through business process transformation (BPT), and their experiences have informed IS research and practice. Although extant theory acknowledges the political nature of these dynamic transformation initiatives, researchers have yet to empirically investigate and theorize how organizational politics impacts BPT behaviors and outcomes. Drawing on a pluralist methodology, we present an embedded case study of a company-wide BPT project across four business units at the high-tech firm Terma. First, we apply different perspectives on organizational politics to develop detailed accounts of each business unit\u27s response to the transformation initiative, which reveals four distinct patterns of BPT politics: “applying the hammer”, “struggling to engage”, “walking the talk”, and “keeping up appearances”. Next, we combine the empirical findings with extant literature to theorize how transformation agents and process users engage in politics during BPT implementation. As a result, our research leverages a pluralist approach to show how alternative political perspectives and forms of politics can help managers maneuver BPT initiatives in their roles as transformation agents and process users

Improving Recurrent Software Development: A Contextualist Inquiry Into Release Cycle Management

Software development is increasingly conducted in a recurrent fashion, where the same product or service is continuously being developed for the marketplace. Still, we lack detailed studies about this particular context of software development. Against this backdrop, this dissertation presents an action research study into Software Inc., a large multi-national software provider. The research addressed the challenges the company faced in managing releases and organizing software process improvement (SPI) to help recurrently develop and deliver a specific product, Secure-on-Request, to its customers and the wider marketplace. The initial problem situation was characterized by recent acquisition of additional software, complexity of service delivery, new engineering and product management teams, and low software development process maturity. Asking how release management can be organized and improved in the context of recurrent development of software, we draw on Pettigrew’s contextualist inquiry to focus on the ongoing interaction between the contents, context and process to organize and improve release cycle practices and outcomes. As a result, the dissertation offers two contributions. Practically, it contributes to the resolution of the problem situation at Software Inc. Theoretically, it introduces a new software engineering discipline, release cycle management (RCM), focused on recurrent delivery of software, including SPI as an integral part, and grounded in the specific experiences at Software Inc