Comparing the Popularity of Testing Careers among Canadian, Indian, Chinese, and Malaysian Students

This study attempts to understand motivators and de-motivators that influence the decisions of software students to take up and sustain software testing careers across four different countries, Canada, India, China, and Malaysia. Towards that end, we have developed a cross-sectional, but simple, survey-based instrument. In this study we investigated how software engineering and computer science students perceive and value what they do and their environmental settings. This study found that very few students are keen to take up software testing careers - why is this happening with such an important task in the software life cycle? The common advantages of a software testing career are learning opportunities and easiness of the job and the common drawbacks are tediousness, complexity, and missing the opportunity to do (software) development. Our findings highlight the importance of depicting software testing activities as a set of human-dependent tasks, and emphasizes the need for research that critically examines the way in which software testers view testing activities

Environmental Factors Influencing Individual Decision-Making Behavior in Software Project: A Systematic Literature Review

As one of the crucial human aspects, individual decision-making behavior that may affect the quality of a software project is adaptive to the environment in which the individual is. However, no comprehensive reference framework of the environmental factors influencing individual decision-making behavior in software projects is presently available. This paper undertakes a systematic literature review (SLR) to gain insight into existing studies on this topic. After a careful SLR process, 40 studies were targeted to solve this question. Based on these extracted studies, we first provided a taxonomy of environmental factors comprising eight categories. Then a total of 237 factors are identified and classified using these eight categories, and some major environmental factors of each category are listed in the paper. The environmental factors listing and the taxonomy can help researchers and practitioners to better understand and predict the behavior of individuals during decision making and to design more effective solutions to improve people management in software projects

Conception of a holistic framework to study a case of management accounting change after an acquisition

This study of a Portuguese chemical company acquired by a multinational, and, thus going through an integration process, aims to understand the process of a Management Accounting (MA) change. Over three decades, the mentioned company was subject to several changes in ownership and external context, regarding economic and regulatory conditions. Following its last acquisition, the company had to comply with new requirements and targets from the parent company, namely in terms of value creation. Hence, control mechanisms, including stricter KPIs, were set. Ahybrid framework was, the refore, developed to analyse the case thoroughly

Multi-factor motivation model in software engineering environments

In software engineering environments, motivation has become an imperative tool for increasing the productivity and creativity levels of projects. The aim of this research is to develop a validated conceptual multifactor and motivating model that represents the interaction between the organisational, occupational and interpersonal factors in software engineering environments. However, the application of well-known motivation tools cannot guarantee high motivational levels among the members of software engineering teams. Therefore, several phenomena have been monitored and empirically tested related to the daily practices in the software engineering industry. Reviewing the literature on motivation in software engineering uncovered a list of influential factors that could motivate individuals in the workplace. These factors have been suggested as being grouped into three categories (interpersonal, occupational and organisational). The literature review stage was followed by a preliminary study to discuss and validate these factors in greater detail by interviewing eight experts drawn from the software engineering industry. The preliminary study provided this research with an initial conceptual model that could broaden the understanding of the recent state of motivation in software engineering environments. The initial model was validated and expanded by conducting two types of research (quantitative and qualitative) based on the type of information gleaned. Accordingly, 208 experienced software engineers and members of teams in the software development industry were involved in this research. The results from this research revealed a statistically significant interaction between factors from different categories (interpersonal, occupational and organisational). This interaction has helped in developing an updated new model of motivation in software engineering. In addition, the application of motivation theories in software engineering could be affected by some work-related factors. These factors were found in this research to be member role, contract types, age, organisational structure and citizenship status. Thus, all these factors have been given a high consideration when designing rewards systems in software engineering

The relationship between pro-innovation organizational climate and innovative work behavior: A study among the knowledge workers of the knowledge intensive business services in Malaysia

This study was conducted to investigate the relationship between pro-innovation organizational climate and innovative work behavior among the knowledge workers of the knowledge intensive business services in Malaysia.The innovative work behavior has a central role in the development of knowledge-intensive business services in Malaysia. It was previously reported that pro-innovation organizational climate to have a significant relationship with innovative work behavior of employees in various business sectors.However, not all support the notion that organizational climate correlates with innovative work behavior.Some of the researchers concluded the relationship is rather weak.This makes it even more interesting to include organizational climate in the research framework of the model of innovative work behavior in Malaysia.A quantitative method was utilized and data were collected using mail survey.A total of 1520 questionnaires was distributed and 310 deemed usable for analysis using SPSS, resulted in 20.6 % response rate.The results revealed that there was a significant relationship between pro-innovation organizational climates with the innovative work behavior of knowledge workers.Discussions of the results and its implications are discussed

“At least I’m useful to the refugees…” - An analysis of workplace motivation among national humanitarian aid workers in northern Burkina Faso

The purpose of this qualitative case study was to add to the understanding of how national humanitarian workers in northern Burkina Faso experience workplace motivation. The study followed an abductive logic in which the national workers’ perceptions served as the empirical grounding of a reflection on workplace motivation and its impacts through Herzberg’s Motivation-Hygiene Theory. The methods used were interviews with national workers, international workers and external actors. An analysis of the factors causing satisfaction revealed that the motivators were related to the job itself, in accordance with the theory. Inversely, the factors causing dissatisfaction related mainly to external aspects of the job, as proposed by the theory. The exact factors differed from the theory, indicating its context-sensitivity. The findings support Herzberg’s concept of the dual dynamic of satisfaction and dissatisfaction. Once critically assessed, the factors revealed that the national workers were generally poorly satisfied and highly dissatisfied, thus poorly motivated. Inversely, international personnel were highly satisfied and poorly dissatisfied, thus highly motivated. High workplace motivation was found to have a positive relationship with performance and well-being, whereas low motivation only led to poorer well-being due to the workers’ context. Gender appeared to have an impact on the national staff’s work experience.L’objectif de cette étude de cas qualitative était d’approfondir la compréhension de la motivation au travail des humanitaires nationaux dans le nord du Burkina Faso. L’étude suivait un raisonnement abductif selon lequel les perceptions des employés locaux servaient de fondation empirique à une réflexion sur la motivation au travail et ses impacts grâce à la Théorie des Deux Facteurs d’Herzberg. Les méthodes employées étaient des entretiens avec du personnel local, du personnel international et des acteurs externes. Une analyse des facteurs causant la satisfaction a révélé que les motivateurs étaient liés au travail-même, en accord avec la théorie. À l’inverse, les facteurs causant l’insatisfaction étaient surtout liés aux aspects externes du travail, comme le propose la théorie. Les facteurs eux-mêmes diffèrent de la théorie, indiquant qu’elle est affectée par le contexte. Les résultats confirment la double dynamique de satisfaction et d’insatisfaction d’Herzberg. Une fois évalués, les facteurs ont révélé que les employés nationaux étaient peu satisfaits et très insatisfaits, donc peu motivés. Au contraire, les employés internationaux étaient très satisfaits et peu insatisfaits, donc très motivés. Une forte motivation au travail est liée à la performance et au bien-être, alors qu’une faible motivation entraîne seulement une réduction du bien-être, dû du contexte. Il semble que le genre ait un impact sur l’expérience au travail des employés nationaux