بررسی رابطه بین فرهنگ سازمانی و استقرار نرم افزاری بهبود فرآیند

We explored the relationship between organizational culture and deployment of software process improvement (SPI) approaches using a competing values framework. Our results indicated that the organizational culture had an influence on SPI deployment, primarily made possible by a hierarchic culture with its emphasis on procedures, order, and stability. Clan culture, with its emphasis on human development, commitment to others, and participation, appears to be a necessary condition in creating skills development and sharing SPI knowledge in the process of its deployment. Software Engineering Program Group leaders should ensure that internal values are in place to enhance SPI deployment.

In recent years, software process improvement (SPI) has emerged as the dominant approach for delivering improvements to the software product in software development organizations. Its intent is to enhance software product quality, increase productivity, and reduce the cycle time for product development. A number of advances have been made in the development of SPI approaches such as ISO 9000, the Capability Maturity Model (CMM) and its newer versions: the Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI), and Software Process Improvement and Capability dEtermination (SPICE), which focus on defining and measuring processes and practices to achieve quality software. ISO 9000 certification and CMMI are used by software companies all over the world. They guide the process improvement throughout the project in a division, or part or the entire organization. CMMI helps adopters to integrate traditionally separate organizational functions, set process improvement goals and priorities; it also provides guidance for implementing quality processes and a reference model for appraising current processes. CMMI provides a staged representation with five levels of software process maturity ranging from initial (processes poorly controlled and reactive) to optimizing (focused on continuous process improvement) [11]. Despite the widespread adoption of SPI, there is still insufficient quantitative evidence of how software products have been improved by its deployment [3], [4], [6] and [16] and there is still a great deal of variability in the success of SPI initiatives [5] and [23]. A recent review of 322 papers on SPI [7] indicated that the field was dominated by one approach (CMM), and heavily biased towards how SPI practitioners can carry out SPI initiatives. Surveys indicated, however, that the SPI field lacked theoretical frameworks. SPI attempts to change how software professionals think and act in their everyday organizational activities. Therefore, its activities can result in organizational changes. Ravichandran and Rai [21] found that organizations face major hurdles in the implementing SPI and that these are more organizational than technological in nature. Several researchers [1] and [18] have also indicated that SPI does not deal effectively with the social aspects of organizations. Thus, it needs a managerial focus rather than a technical one. Hofstede regarded organizational culture as the collection of values, beliefs and norms shared by its members and reflected in its practices and goals. This can affect SPI deployment. Results of several studies, e.g. [2], [8] and [10], have also suggested that organizational culture has a significant effect on both the successful implementation and the use of IT. Therefore, we decided to examine SPI approaches, specifically CMMI, to ascertain the influence that organizational culture has on SPI deployment.

Our study applied a competing values framework to analyze the relationshipbetweentheorganizationalcultureandSPIdeployment. Resultssuggestedthattheorganizationalculturedidindeedhavean influence on the deployment, which was primarily associated with hierarchic culture. On the other hand, clan culture was a necessary conditionforcreatingskillsdevelopmentandsharingSPIknowledge in the process of SPI deployment. Therefore, SEPG leaders should recognize all the steps involved in software process improvement, learnhowtobegoodcoordinatorsandorganizers,andencouragethedevelopment of internally oriented cultures. This study points out the need to consider culture when a new SPI approach is implemented; it may be incompatible with the existing culture. One limitation of our study was that it focused only on CMMI as thesoftwareprocessimprovementapproach.Anotherlimitationof this study is that its findings were based on investigations in Taiwan. Obviously, generalizing the results to different cultural or economic contexts should be made with caution.