Process Maturity and Software Quality: A Field Study

Quality has emerged as a key issue in the development and deployment of software products (Haag et al. 1996; Prahalad and Krishnan 1999; Yourdon 1992). As software products play an increasingly critical role in supporting strategic business initiatives, it is important that these products function correctly and according to users’ specifications. The costs of poor software quality (in terms of reduced productivity, downtime, customer dissatisfaction, and injury) can be enormous. For example, the Help Desk Institute, an industry group based in Denver, estimates that in 1999, Americans spent 65 million minutes on “hold” waiting for help from software vendors in debugging software problems (Minasi 2000)

Braking IS\u27s Revolving Door: A Study of Internal Labor Market Practices and IS Turnover

Turnover is endemic in Information Systems (IS). Turnover rates for IS professionals are estimated at more than double the averages for other business professionals, and are in excess of 25% for certain positions in many regions in the United States and other countries. The turnover problem is exacerbated by the increasing demand for IS work, the rapid evolution of information technology which quickly obsoletes IS skills, and extreme shortages for certain IS skills. Thus, recruiting, developing and retaining a skilled staff is a central managerial concern in IS. But, why is turnover so high and pervasive in IS? Are there organizational solutions that can be effective in reducing turnover? These questions are the focus of this study

Mitigating the Effects of Structural Complexity on Open Source Software Maintenance through Accountability

In this research, we investigate the relationships between structural complexity, accountability, and software maintenance performance in Open Source Software development projects. Additionally, we investigate the moderating role of monetary incentives on various relationships. We collected data on 5,000 bug reports from the SourceForge database and perceptual data from 181 open source software developers registered on SourceForge for model validation. Results support our hypotheses. The important implications of the results are discussed

In Search of Software Maintenance Productivity and Quality: Does Software Complexity Matter?

Over the past several decades, sof.twaremaintenance has heen absorbing a large and rising proportion of Information Systcmns (IS) resources wilh expenditures ofteu as high as 80% to 95% of the total IS budget (Nosek and Palvia 1990). On a life-cycle basis, about three-fourths of the investment in software occurs after the system bas been implemented. Thus, support for existing software represents il significant investment of resources for most f m s and there is considerable interest in understaiding and improving productivity and quality in the software maintenance w k

Measuring Software Volatility: A Multi-Dimensional Approach

The only thing constant is change. This is certainly more true of software systems than almost any phenomenon. Not all software systems change in the same way or at the same rate. Some constantly undergo major modifications and others remain untouched for years at a time. Identification and understanding of these differences in dynamic software system behavior (i.e., software evolution) can improve software engineering and systems management. Measurement is key to understanding any phenomenon. Software volatility, a characteristic of software behavior, describes the changeable nature of software. By rigorously defining, evaluating, and validating a measure of software volatility, we can expand our understanding of the evolutionary processes constantly transforming software systems

An Empirical Investigation of Contingent Workforce in Information Systems

INTRODUCTION Since the recession in the 1980s, U.S. corporations have been strategically acquiring, merging, restructuring, and downsizing. Such strategic adjustments are aimed at configuring leanandmean operations in response to the increasingly dynamic, competitive and uncertain business climate (ScottMorton, 1991). A direct consequence of these radical changes to business operations is the revolutionary change in the traditional employer employee working relationship. Pfeffer and Baron (1988) suggest that there is a trend toward taking the workers back out , in which organizations externalize a buffer of temporary workers against the core or permanent workforce. This externalization involves the use of contingent workforce where workers are physically transported out of the organization\u27s boundaries to perform their work; where the duration of employment becomes shorter and more flexible; and where workers are detached administratively with organizations reducing their internal control of workers. Recent literature suggests that externalization of the workforce has been particularly pronounced in information systems (IS). Many internal IS organizations have been undergoing continual downsizing of their traditional permanent workforce since the late 1980\u27s by outsourcing and contracting (Niederman and Trower, 1993; Korzeniowski, 1990). Molloy (1991) highlighted an increasing number of temporary executive IS jobs while Ryan (1991) observed that jobless IS workers are turning to contract work to tide over their midcareer crisis. Clearly, these trends have significant implications for IS human resource management. For example, IS careers, incentive structures, and mutual employerworker obligations will be affected radically by an increasing presence and use of contingent workforce in organizations. However, despite the changing nature of IS employment options and the importance of IS human resource management (Niederman, Brancheau and Wetherbe, 1991), there has been little systematic analysis of the nature, extent and antecedents of externalizing IS human resources in organizations. Our study is designed with two objectives: to provide an empirical analysis of actual trends in IS employment strategies and to derive an explanatory model predicting the choice of a particular IS employment strategy. Thus, the first set of issues examined concerns the forms and trends of alternative employment strategies in IS. We examine the following questions: what are the hiring options opened to both employers and workers in IS ? what is the trend in alternative employment strategies in IS since the 1980s ? We draw upon transaction cost economics to derive an explanatory model predicting the antecedents of IS employment strategies. The choice to use internal or external IS employment strategies can be framed as a classic make or buy decision of transaction cost economics, with respect to human capital inputs. Economists have often focused on costs inherent in various make or buy decisions. Coase (1937) originally theorized about the tradeoffs between transaction costs of external procurement and management costs of internal production. Demsetz (1988) argued that there are three different kinds of costs: production costs, exchange or transaction costs, and management costs inherent in any boundary outcome and that it is a combination of all three that is important in determining the make or buy decision. Williamson (1981) shifted attention away from distinguishing transaction and management costs, as these costs are difficult to measure operationally. Instead, in the context of labor factor inputs, he focused on the presence of particular job characteristics such as firm specificity of skills, high interdependency, difficulty in monitorability, and task complexity, emphasizing the burden of management and transaction costs when jobs are externalized. In effect, these job characteristics offer proxy measures of transaction costs. Thus, the second set of issues examined in this study concerns the kinds of considerations that play a role in boundary determination for IS labor. We examine the following questions: how do transaction costs determine IS labor boundaries ? what kinds of IS skill and job characteristics are associated with alternative employment strategies for IS labor

Influence, Information Technology & Group Polarization: A Field Study of a Virtual Team

This study examines influence and IT in group polarization. Group polarization is the tendency of group members to shift their initial positions to a more extreme direction following discussion. We hypothesize that informational influence is relatively more important than normative influence in causing group members to shift their positions and that IT can be used to enhance the effects of informational influence. Our investigation of group processes, influence and IT use by a virtual team responsible for forecasting ozone levels reveals several important findings. First, we find the heterogeneity of pre-discussion individual decisions and greater task uncertainty increase group polarization through a greater relative use of informational influence. Second, surprisingly, we find that the relative use of informational influence and the use of IT for persuasion are substitutive not complementary in their effects on group polarization. These findings have significant theoretical and practical implications for decision making in virtual teams

Managing the Unmanageable: How IS Research Can Contribute to the Scholarship of Cyber Projects

Cyber projects are large-scale efforts to implement computer, information, and communication technologies in scientific communities. These projects seek to build scientific cyberinfrastructure that will promote new scientific collaborations and transform science in novel and unimagined ways. Their scope and complexity, the number and diversity of stakeholders, and their transformational goals make cyber projects extremely challenging to understand and manage. Consequently, scholars from multiple disciplines, including computer science, information science, sociology, and information systems, have begun to study cyber projects and their impacts. As IS scholars, our goal is to contribute to this growing body of inter-disciplinary knowledge by considering three areas of IS research that are particularly germane to this class of project, given their characteristics: development approaches, conflict, and success factors. After describing cyber projects, we explore how IS research findings in these three areas are relevant for cyber projects, and suggest promising avenues of future research. We conclude by discussing the importance and unique challenges of cyber projects and propose that, given our expertise and knowledge of project management, IS researchers are particularly well suited to contribute to the inter-disciplinary study of these projects