• Information systems multisourcing requires mechanisms that ensure both competition and cooperation. • Multisourcing arrangements may fruitfully combine cooperation-enhancing and competition-enhancing mechanisms if the mechanisms are of the same type (force versus emergent). • Conversely, the coexistence of forced and emergent mechanisms, which rely on economic versus social logics, can result in substitution effects. This paper examines the effect of forced and emergent competition- and cooperation-enhancing mechanisms on joint multisourcing performance. We draw on research on coopetition in IS multisourcing and the literature on the crowding-out effect to theorise the interplay between these mechanisms. We argue that the key to understanding whether these mechanisms complement or substitute each other lies in the distinction between forced and emergent mechanisms, as these respectively invoke either an economic or a social logic among vendors. We test these ideas through a survey study of 108 multisourcing arrangements. Our results show that while a forced competition and an emergent cooperation mechanism can individually improve joint performance in multisourcing, the co-existence of economic and social logics results in a substitutional effect. A complementary effect is achieved when competition and cooperation mechanisms are of the same logic. Our study extends the existing IS outsourcing literature by shedding light on the role of forced and emergent mechanisms, either as competition or cooperation-enhancing, in enhancing multisourcing performance.

Abstract Psychological safety continues to pique the interest of scholars in a variety of disciplines of study. Recent research indicates that psychological safety fosters knowledge sharing and norm clarity and complements agile values. Although software quality remains a concern in the software industry, academics have yet to investigate whether and how psychologically safe teams provide superior results. In this study, we explore how psychological safety influences agile teams’ quality-related behaviors aimed at enhancing software quality. To widen the empirical coverage and evaluate the results, we chose a two-phase mixed-methods research design with an exploratory qualitative phase (20 interviews) followed by a quantitative phase (survey study, N = 423). Our findings show that, when psychological safety is established in agile software teams, it induces enablers of a social nature that advance the teams’ ability to pursue software quality. For example, admitting mistakes and taking initiatives equally help teams learn and invest their learning in their future decisions related to software quality. Past mistakes become points of reference for avoiding them in the future. Individuals become more willing to take initiatives aimed at enhancing quality practices and mitigating software quality issues. We contribute to our endeavor to understand the circumstances that promote software quality. Psychological safety requires organizations, their management, agile teams, and individuals to maintain and propagate safety principles. Our results also suggest that technological tools and procedures can be utilized alongside social strategies to promote software quality.

In today's world, organizations rely on cybersecurity end-user compliance as an essential practical parameter. Yet cybersecurity compliance remains a challenge, and failures are commonplace. But why? In addressing this question, we argue that ISP compliance is neither too monolithic nor too granular a construct but needs respecification. We empirically investigate cybersecurity antecedents leading to (i) user protection-centric password management and (ii) system protection-centric update compliance dimensions. The results of our survey of 241 users show differentiating behavioral strands intertwined across different types of compliance, highlighting a unique interplay of attitudes, knowledge, and social factors as antecedents to password and update compliance.

Psychological safety continues to inspire researchers’ curiosity in various fields of study. It has been shown to enhance teams’ performance, efficiency, and learning, among other corollaries. Researchers are stretching the boundaries of these early findings to identify further effects of psychological safety. Recent work shows that psychological safety promotes knowledge sharing, norm clarity, and complements agile values. Studies show that psychological safety enhance agile values and practices, and some practitioners went as far as to claim “agile doesn’t work without psychological safety.” Yet, researchers have not explored its antecedents. In this study, we sought to understand how psychological safety materializes in agile software development teams. We opted for a two-phase mixed-methods study; an exploratory qualitative phase (18 interviews) followed by a quantitative phase (survey study, N = 365) to broaden the empirical coverage and test phase one’s findings. Our findings show that psychological safety is established in agile software teams when individuals, the team, and the leadership adopt and promote strategies conducive to promoting a psychologically safe workplace. While openness and no blame towards team members are the “butter and bread” of psychological safety, collective-decision making within the team and the leadership ownership remain the pillars of a psychologically safe workplace. Conversely, team autonomy, technical practices providing a safety net and slack time were not found to promote psychological safety. To institutionalize psychological safety in agile software teams, individuals, teams, and the leadership should consolidate their effort to adopt no blame, openness, collective decision-making in the team, and assuming the ownership of promoting a psychologically safe workplace.

Technical excellence is a nebulous term in agile software development. This vagueness is risky because it may lead to misunderstandings and to agile implementations that may overlook a key principle of agile development. This study investigates how agile practitioners interpret the concept of technical excellence brought up in Principle 9 of the Agile manifesto. Moreover, we investigate how agile practitioners put the concept into practice and what conditions facilitate putting technical excellence into practice. We conducted semi-structured interviews with twenty agile practitioners, coded the data inductively, and performed two sessions to validate the emerging findings. We find that technical excellence is first and foremost a mindset that is underpinned by continuous attention to sustainable code, continuous learning, and teamwork. Fostering technical excellence requires the adoption of design and development practices, such as continuous architecting, and is supported by continuous learning. We also identify three enabling conditions for technical excellence: Leadership support, customer buy-in, and psychological safety. These enablers provide teams with leeway to nurture their pursuit of technical excellence. Our findings highlight the key role of people-based strategies in promoting technical excellence in agile software development. They show that the attainment of technical excellence does not only involve technical practices. On the contrary, it relies on social and organizational support and, most importantly, a mindset.

Dedicated complementors are devoted, faithful, and willing to invest in their partnership with a platform owner. Since such complementors promise continuous value co-creation, complementor dedication is an essential objective of platform governance. However, as dedicated complementors also increase their vulnerability vis-à-vis the platform owner, platform governance needs to strike a balance between satisfying global ecosystem needs and the local partnership needs. To understand this challenge better, our study develops six hypotheses on how two fundamental governance mechanisms – i.e., rules and the way in which these rules are practised – independently and symbiotically drive complementor dedication. We test these hypotheses using survey data from 181 complementors. Our findings show that complementors become more dedicated to a platform owner, the more adequate they perceive the rules to be. Furthermore, our findings suggest two sensible strategies to actualise the potential of adequate rules. Platform owners should either refrain entirely from practising rules with situational flexibility and benevolence, thereby achieving moderate complementor dedication. Alternatively, they should practice rules with both flexibility and benevolence at the same time, thereby maximising complementor dedication. Our findings contribute to the literature on platform governance and broader governance literature.

Although agile practices are gaining in popularity, there is little evidence showing how particular agile practices, in particular those involving the client, affect the success of outsourced software projects. Data from a matched survey of sponsors and developers in 60 outsourced information systems projects indicate negative effects of continuous analysis and positive effects of joint decision making and continuous integration on project success. Moreover, interaction analyses show that some positive effects are enhanced and negative effects dampened when requirements risk is high. These findings caution against continuous analysis in outsourced projects while they support joint decision making and continuous integration. The findings also empirically substantiate the largely untested assertion that agile practices help cope with changing requirements.