Linking The Customer Knowledge Management with Software Quality: An Empirical Study of Software Development Organizations in Pakistan

The aim of research was to enhance the Customer Knowledge Management (CKM) which has high impact on the quality of software products. In Enterprise Software (ES) development the Customer knowledge management is still immature. This raises the question of how CKM enablers can be used to help ES development companies improve the quality of their software. In this study, human, organizational and technical CKM enablers Were recognized by literature. The results of the study showed that CKM enablers can help to improve the quality of software products in Pakistan. Framework for CKM can help software development organizations to improve software quality as well and will also reduce cost and gain market reputation with competent trained resources. Results showed that "customer involvement" with "trust" were the most influential factors, followed by "CRM technology infrastructure" and "cross-functional co-operation". Furthermore, "there was no impact from the organizational Training "," customer knowledge map ", and" CKM strategy development ". The results also showed that the impact of CKM on software quality is significant. The results of the study also highlighted all the potential factors that are beneficial in influencing the CKM for quality improvement of ES in Pakistan

Customer knowledge management antecedent factors for enterprise software quality

Customer Knowledge Management (CKM) plays an important role in the production of high quality software products. Previous studies have only focused on the technical aspects of software quality. However, because of the nature of enterprise software, there is a greater dependence on CKM for customization, enhancement, maintenance, and training. As CKM in Enterprise Software (ES) development is still immature, this raises questions on how CKM can help ES development companies to improve their software quality. In this research, Knowledge-Based View (KBV) and Theory of Technology were used to demonstrate the Organizational, Human, and Technological antecedent factors that enable the CKM process and lead to ES quality. Human, Organizational and Technological CKM antecedent factors were identified from the literature. The importance degree of each factor was determined by experts from ES development companies using Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS). Moreover, based on high priority factors, a theoretical model was developed. The proposed model was evaluated by distributing a survey questionnaire to decision-makers in ES development companies. With 164 valid questionnaires received, the collected data was analyzed using the Partial Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) technique. The results show that Customer Involvement together with Senior Management Support were the most influential factors. There was no impact from Organizational Training, Customer Knowledge Map, and CKM Strategy Development. The results revealed that the impact of CKM on software quality is significant. The model developed in this research can be used as a guideline for the successful application of CKM in enterprise software development companies to improve the software quality

Vendors' incentives to invest in software quality in enterprise systems

In the enterprise system market, software quality is often unobservable at the contracting stage between the vendor and the customer. Two factors complicate the vendor's decision to invest in software quality. First, as a required part of the transaction, services such as installation and maintenance are bundled with the product. Second, the vendor's cost of delivering these services is directly affected by quality of the software. Incorporating these factors, we develop an analytical framework to examine when vendors of enterprise systems have an incentive to invest in software quality under different market structures and market participant behaviors. We also investigate economic consequences of such quality decisions by enterprise software vendors, highlighting certain unique characteristics of these markets. We consider a duopoly setting, with simultaneous and sequential moves of the vendors. Our results show that in the duopoly market, even when customers are uninformed about quality, an investment-equilibrium exists. We find that there exist conditions under which customers might have reasons to trust that vendors would invest in high software quality.close0

Developing a socio-technical process framework for information systems project management in a Public HEI : a case study of Kuwait University

The observable variety in Information Systems projects outcomes is a global phenomenon, and IS projects in the State of Kuwait are no exception. The participatory approach of managing IS projects by including key stakeholders (e.g. top and middle managers, IT support, external vendors, consultants, and users) became a commonly accepted fashion both in public and private institutions to improve project efficiency and effectiveness. The consensus is that IS project success relies on interlinked factors that support/hinder those stakeholders in reaching their planned goals. Accordingly, these factors are socio-technical as they continuously affect the interplay between the social sub-system and technical sub-system of the IS project. Aiming to understand the status quo of IS project implementation at Kuwait University, this thesis adopts McLeod and MacDonell’s framework (2011) supported by the Social-Technical Theory (Mumford, 2006). Both led the researcher to explore different factors that affect individual’s actions, development process, project content, and the overall project outcomes in Kuwait University (as a public institution). The Kuwaiti context is under-researched and required an interpretative research approach to shed light on this developing context and address the expanding west-east digital divide. In doing so, a qualitative case study was best suited to help capture the social construction of those success factors and reveal their constructive influence on the IS project success/failure. Out of 23 semi-structured interviews, our findings refer to an “event” as a temporal instance that causes turbulence/imbalance between individual’s actions, the development process, and project context. During these incidents, the project outcomes respond differently to the institutional environment. Further, our evidence pointed to two layers of institutional factors that reflect completely different epistemological grounds; country-level versus organisational level. While the former reflects the political factors that shape the outcomes of IS projects in the State of Kuwait in general, the latter reflects socio-technical factors that apply on educational IS systems developed in Kuwait University. Theoretically, a revised model of educational IS development has been developed to reflect the temporal dimension that shapes the development process and the project outcomes. McLeod and MacDonell’s process-based framework offers a socio-technical view that is untapped in the original framework and helps set out the right policies and practices of IS project management for practitioners and regulators in Kuwait University. Furthermore, the political and cultural insights offered by the research participants would assist western universities while developing IS educational projects in Kuwait through franchise entry mode or distant learning