Software development process ambidexterity (SDPA) is the ability to demonstrate both process alignment and process adaptability simultaneously. Realizing process ambidexterity has recently been suggested as an effective approach to improving the performance of software development (SD) projects. To understand the mechanisms underlying the effects of ambidexterity, we focus in this study on the mediating effects of coordination, one of the most important activity in SD projects. Specifically, we hypothesize a mediating effect of coordination costs and coordination effectiveness on the relationship between SDPA and project performance. We conducted a quantitative study involving 104 SD projects across 10 firms to test the model. The results strongly suggest that the positive relationship between SDPA and project performance is negatively mediated by coordination costs and positively mediated by coordination effectiveness. We validate our research model with a case study in an organization employing several hundred IT professionals and derive several practical implications on this basis.

Organisations operate in increasingly dynamic environments, internetworked in cooperative arrangements that cocreate value. They pursue the cocreation of value through collaborative networks, rather than in isolation. However, there is insufficient understanding of how networked organisations cocreate value in the network through the innovative use of information systems (IS): existing multi-firm studies are largely concerned with dyadic relationships. In terms of capturing value from the cocreation process, many studies have reported either enhanced organisational efficiencies (exploitative capability) or resulting innovations (explorative capability), but rarely both aspects simultaneously. This study attempts to draw a comprehensive picture of IS-based value leverage by reporting both the value cocreation process (network level) and value capture (organisational level) through a case study of innovative IS use in a large business network. This network links a public hub organisation with a large number of firms in the South Korean broadcast advertising industry. Drawing on Grover and Kohli’s framework for value cocreation, the case study investigates the detailed process by which network-level value cocreation occurs in the four layers of relational arrangements. It also highlights, from an organisational ambidexterity perspective, how the cocreated value is appropriated through ambidextrous activities by the networked organisations.

In the age of emerging applications, such as Internet of Things (IoT), big data, and data mining, our life becomes more convenient through customized services that utilize a huge amount of personal data generated and collected by various IoT devices. To fully exploit the data value as well as enhance the data utilization, more and more data are being traded in online data markets. While enjoying the benefit from data trading, data sellers are also suffering from severe risk of privacy leakage. In this paper, our objective is to maximize data seller's received utility via balancing the tradeoff between data trading benefit and data privacy cost. To achieve this, contract theory is utilized to design optimal contract trading mechanisms for both complete and incomplete information markets. From our thorough theoretical analysis, comprehensive simulations, and real-data experiments, the effectiveness of our proposed optimal contract mechanisms can be validated, i.e., the maximum utility can be obtained at the seller side, the individual rationality and incentive compatibility can be guaranteed at the buyer side, and the advantages of our mechanism over the single contract mechanisms can be confirmed.

Agile methods have been widely adopted around the world – particularly in the Eastern world, where cultural scripts differ from that of the West from where agile methods originated. However, there is a lack of understanding of the interplay between the basic tenets of agile methods and the Eastern cultures. This understanding is crucial for the effective use of the methods in these cultures. To examine how Eastern cultural phenomena interplay with agile methods, we followed an emic approach in a multisite case study. We examined the adaptation of agile practices in organizations in China, India, and South Korea. We developed a framework describing how Eastern cultural scripts often express the collectivist response to cultural theoretical concepts and how the cultural response interacts in complementary and conflicting ways with agile methods. To explore how conflicts are mitigated, we examined the ways organizations develop ambidextrous practices.

Cloud computing enables convenient and on-demand access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources. While cloud computing‘s ability to improve operational efficiency has gained much attention in the literature, there has been limited research on how it can help organizations achieve dynamic capabilities. Drawing from dynamic capabilities theory, we conducted a field study using a multiple case study design to examine the following research question: How do organizations achieve dynamic capabilities by using Cloud Computing? We develop a framework that explains how organizations respond to market dynamism by developing sense-and-response strategies that enable them to achieve dynamic capabilities using business process redesign, business network redesign, and business scope redefinition. We discuss how these transformations, in turn, improve organizational outcomes such as service effectiveness and efficiency. Our study also identifies factors that support and hinder the development of dynamic capabilities. Our study contributes to the literature on dynamic capabilities by examining how IT capabilities like cloud computing may accelerate the ability of an organization to achieve dynamic capabilities. We also identify transformational changes of business processes and inter-organizational networks that are enabled by cloud computing. Further, we identify how the essential characteristics of cloud computing support sense and respond strategies.

With congeneric mergers, which involve firms with interrelated but not identical business lines that develop diverse products and services, a major challenge for organizations is the development of a common platform that fulfills similar business functions across multiple divisions. Through a field study of a post-merger common platform development initiative, we develop a framework that highlights how environmental and organizational contexts shape the process of common platform development (CPD). Our study provides an account of how the focal organization transitioned to a platform-based approach by achieving a balance between stable and flexible aspects of the common platform through negotiations among the divisions acquired through mergers and acquisitions. These negotiations were enabled through various boundary-spanning activities and the guided successive enrichment of boundary objects used in CPD process.

Agile software development that provides software development organizations, the ability to respond to changes in turbulent business environments, has been gaining wide adoption. Agile software development projects are characterized by ‘just enough’ planning and lack of upfront commitment to scope, cost, and schedule. These characteristics pose conflicting demands on managers responsible for making funding decisions, because traditional approaches to funding IT projects are often based on well-defined scope, cost, and schedule. These conflicts demand the adaptation of traditional funding processes to suit to agile projects. We draw from Adaptive Structuration Theory to understand the nature of conflicts between traditional IT project funding processes and the dynamic nature of agile projects, and how these conflicts are addressed by practices that are appropriated in the process of social interaction between funding decision makers and development teams. On the basis of a multisite case study, we present a framework that explains how organizations adapt traditional IT funding approaches to accommodate the unique characteristics of agile IT projects.

Agile development methodologies such as Extreme Programming are becoming increasingly popular due to their focus on managing time to market constraints and the ability to accommodate changes during the software development life cycle. However, such methodologies need to be adapted to suit the needs of different contexts. Past literature has paid little attention to examine the adaptation of agile methodologies. Using adaptive structuration theory as a lens to analyze data from a multisite case study, we examine how the structure of agile methods, projects, and organizations affect the adaptation of agile methodologies. We describe the various sources of structure that affect appropriation of agile practices, the set of appropriated practices and their characteristics, and their link to process outcomes. Based on our findings, we provide prescriptions for adapting agile development methodologies. We also discuss how adapted agile practices can address several challenges faced by agile development teams.

Requirements traceability is intended to ensure continued alignment between stakeholder requirements and various outputs of the system development process. To be useful, traces must be organized according to some modeling framework. Indeed, several such frameworks have been proposed, mostly based on theoretical considerations or analysis of other literature. This paper, in contrast, follows an empirical approach. Focus groups and interviews conducted in 26 major software development organizations demonstrate a wide range of traceability practices with distinct low-end and high-end users of traceability. From these observations, reference models comprising the most important kinds of traceability links for various development tasks have been synthesized. The resulting models have been validated in case studies and are incorporated in a number of traceability tools. A detailed case study on the use of the models is presented. Four kinds of traceability link types are identified and critical issues that must be resolved for implementing each type and potential solutions are discussed. Implications for the design of next-generation traceability methods and tools are discussed and illustrated.

Many standards that mandate requirements traceability as well as current literature do not provide a comprehensive model of what information should be captured and used as a part of a traceability scheme. Therefore, the practices and usefulness of traceability vary considerably across systems development efforts, ranging from very simplistic practices just aimed at satisfying the mandates to very comprehensive traceability schemes used as an important tool for managing the systems development process. We present a case study of a systems development organization, employing a comprehensive view of traceability. A model describing the traceability practice in the organization, perceived benefits of such a scheme and lessons learnt from implementing it are presented.

In the development of large-scale, real-time, complex computer intensive systems, it is essential to maintain traceability of requirements to various outputs to ensure that the system meets the current set of requirements. Based on an empirical study in a simulated systems development environment, several major issues that need to be considered in the development of a model of requirements traceability are addressed.< >

Rapid prototyping offers an iterative approach to requirements engineering to alleviate problems such as uncertainty, ambiguity, and inconsistency inherent in the process. As the systems development process is characterized by changing requirements and assumptions, involving multiple stakeholders with often differing viewpoints, it will be beneficial to capture in a structured manner the history of the development process. The authors describe how CAPS (computer aided prototyping system) as a prototyping tool, augmented with REMAP (representation and maintenance of process knowledge) framework for reasoning with process knowledge, helps firm up software requirements. This is accomplished by iterative negotiations between various customers and by examination of executable prototypes in the context of evolving requirements.>

Support for various stakeholders involved in software projects (designers, maintenance personnel, project managers and executives, end users) can be provided by capturing the history about design decisions in the early stages of the system's development life cycle in a structured manner. Much of this knowledge, which is called the process knowledge, involving the deliberation on alternative requirements and design decisions, is lost in the course of designing and changing such systems. Using an empirical study of problem-solving behavior of individual and groups of information systems professionals, a conceptual model called REMAP (representation and maintenance of process knowledge) that relates process knowledge to the objects that are created during the requirements engineering process has been developed. A prototype environment that provides assistance to the various stakeholders involved in the design and management of large systems has been implemented.>