Coordination and learning in global software development : articulation work in distributed cooperation of small companies [Elektronische Ressource] / Alexander Boden

Alexander Boden

Sujets

• Management

Informations

• Publié par: universitat_siegen
• Publié le: 01 janvier 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 22
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 4 Mo

Extrait

Coordination and Learning in Global
Software Development
Articulation Work in Distributed Cooperation of Small
Companies
Dissertation
von
Alexander Boden
zur Erlangung des Doktorgrades Dr. rer. pol.
an der Fakultät III:
Wirtschaftswissenschaften,
Wirtschaftsinformatik und Wirtschaftsrecht
der Universität SiegenAbstract
Software offshoring has been established as an important business strategy over the last
decade. WhileresearchonsuchformsofGlobalSoftwareDevelopment(GSD)hasmainly
focused on the situation of large enterprises, small enterprises are increasingly engaging
in offshoring, too. Representing the biggest share of the German software industry, small
companiesareknowntobeimportantinnovatorsandmarketpioneers. Theyoftenregard
their flexibility and customer-orientation as core competetive advantages. Unlike large
corporations,theirsmallsizeallowsthemtoadoptsoftwaredevelopmentapproachesthat
are characterized by a high agility and flat hierachies. At the same time, their distinct
strategies make it unlikely that they can simply adopt management strategies that were
developed for larger companies.
Flexible development approaches like the ones preferred by small corporations have
proven to be problematic in the context of offshoring, as their strong dependency on
constant communication is strongly affected by the various barriers of international co-
operation between companies. Cooperating closely over companies’ borders in different
time zones and in culturally diverse teams poses complex obstacles for flexible manage-
ment approaches. It is still a matter of discussion in fields like Software Engineering
and Computer Supported Cooperative Work how these obstacles can be tackled and how
they affect companies in the long term. Hence, it is agreed that we need a more detailed
understanding of distributed software development practices in order to come to feasable
technological and organizational solutions.
This dissertation presents results from two ethnographically-informed case studies of
softwareoffshoringinsmallGermanenterprises. ByadoptingAnselmStrauss’conceptof
articulation work,wewanttodeepentheunderstandingofmanagingdistributedsoftware
development in flexible, customer-oriented organizations. In doing so, we show how
practices of coordinating inter-organizational software development are closely related
to aspects of organizational learning in small enterprises. By means of interviews with
developers and project managers from both parties of the cooperation, we do not only
2takeintoaccountthemultipleperspectivesofthecooperation, butalsoincludethesocio-
cultural background of international software devlopment projects into our analysis.
Based on an analysis of the management practices we found in the field, we present
theoretical as well as practical implications for the management of software offshoring in
small companies. Furthermore, we contribute implications for the design of supportive
technology, and discuss the methodological issues that we encountered while doing field
research in the field of distributed software development.
3Acknowledgements
I am deeply grateful to my thesis advisor Volker Wulf for guiding my research activities
at the intersection between Software Engineering and Computer Supported Cooperative
Work. As a cultural anthropologist doing my PhD in the field of Information Systems,
his support and advice was especially important and valuable for me.
Also, I cannot thank Bernhard Nett enough for his tutorage. Many of the ideas and
insights of my research are based on the interesting discussions we had during the time
I worked on my thesis.
Special thanks goes also to my former advisor Gunther Hirschfelder, who helped me in
finding my way into the field of Information Systems. Without his support, I would
hardly have taken this step.
I am especially grateful to Sebastian Draxler and Gunnar Stevens for their valuable
feedbackandinputespeciallyduringthefinishingphaseofmystudy,aswellastoClaudia
Müller for her advice and co-authorship. I would also like to thank my other colleagues
from the University of Siegen and Fraunhofer FIT who gave me feedback and inspiration
in uncountable discussions.
Furthermore, I thank Gabriela Avram from the University of Limerick for the fruitful
cooperation on various papers and other research activities. Thanks a million!
I also thank all the participants of my study, who welcomed me at their workplaces
and allwed me to conduct interviews and observations, and who have chosen to remain
anonymous in this dissertation.
Last but not least, I also feel deep gratitude towards my family and especially to my
fiancée, who have always supported me morally through the years that it took to write
this book; without their support, patience and encouragement, this dissertation would
not have been possible.
4Contents
1. Introduction 11
I. Concept 14
2. Related Work 15
2.1. Global Software Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.1.1. Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
2.1.2. Offshoring of Information Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.1.3. Software Offshoring in SMEs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
2.1.4. Flexibility and Learning as Core Competencies of software devel-
oping SMEs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
2.2. Computer Supported Cooperative Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
2.2.1. Articulation Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
2.2.2. Articulation Work in Distributed Software Projects . . . . . . . . . 24
3. Study Outline 28
3.1. Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
3.2. Methodology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
3.3. Case Studies. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
3.3.1. Company Alpha . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
3.3.2. Company Beta . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
II. Findings 37
4. Conducting Business Ethnography 38
4.1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
4.2. Related Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
4.2.1. Qualitative Research in Software Engineering . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
5Contents
4.2.2. The Concept of Business Ethnography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
4.3. Research Project: Articulation Work in Offshoring of small to medium-
sized Software Companies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
4.3.1. Aims and Research Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
4.3.2. Analysis of our Research Methodology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
4.3.3. Case Study: Company Alpha . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
4.4. Conducting a Business Ethnography in our Project . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
4.5. Challenges of GSD Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
4.5.1. Studying Global Work Practices through a Local Lens . . . . . . . 51
4.5.2. Adapting to Changing Interests of the Company . . . . . . . . . . 53
4.5.3. Dealing with Micro-Political Conflicts between the Sites . . . . . . 55
4.6. Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
4.7. Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
5. Coordination Practices 62
5.1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
5.2. Global Software Development in SME . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
5.2.1. Theoretical Perspectives on Offshoring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
5.2.2. Agility as a Core Competency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
5.3. Articulation Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
5.3.1. Articulation Work and Software Development . . . . . . . . . . . 65
5.3.2. Articulation Work in Distributed Work Environments . . . . . . . 66
5.4. Research Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
5.4.1. Interviews . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
5.4.2. Participant Observation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
5.4.3. Grounded Theory Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
5.4.4. The Cases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
5.5. Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
5.5.1. Bug fixing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
5.5.2. Specification of Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
5.5.3. Communication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
5.6. Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
5.7. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
6. Operational and Strategic Learning 79
6.1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
6.2. Single- and Double-Loop Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
6Contents
6.3. Research Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
6.4. The Case Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .