Article Free Access Share on Work structures and shifts: an empirical analysis of software specification teamwork Authors: Salah Bendifallah Computer Science Department, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA Computer Science Department, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CAView Profile , Walt Scacchi Computer Science Department, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA Computer Science Department, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CAView Profile Authors Info & Claims ICSE '89: Proceedings of the 11th international conference on Software engineeringMay 1989 Pages 260–270https://doi.org/10.1145/74587.74624Published:15 May 1989Publication History 15citation668DownloadsMetricsTotal Citations15Total Downloads668Last 12 Months15Last 6 weeks4 Get Citation AlertsNew Citation Alert added!This alert has been successfully added and will be sent to:You will be notified whenever a record that you have chosen has been cited.To manage your alert preferences, click on the button below.Manage my AlertsNew Citation Alert!Please log in to your account Save to BinderSave to BinderCreate a New BinderNameCancelCreateExport CitationPublisher SiteeReaderPDF

Software maintenance can be successfully accomplished if the computing arrangements of the people doing the maintenance are compatible with their established patterns of work in the setting. To foster and achieve such compatibility requires an understanding of the reasons and the circumstances in which participants carry out maintenance activities. In particular, it requires an understanding of how software users and maintainers act toward the changing circumstances and unexpected events in their work situation that give rise to software system alterations. To contribute to such an understanding, we describe a comparative analysis of the work involved in maintaining and evolving text-processing systems in two academic computer science organizations. This analysis shows that how and why software systems are maintained depends on occupational and workplace contingencies, and vice versa.