Abstract
This paper presents results from a grounded theory analysis of method deployment in five small- and medium-sized system development organizations. The study confirms some observations from earlier research, such as the impact of project size and individual attitude and experience of developers. In addition, organizational factors, such as type of business, development goals, history of method use, employee turnover, geographical distribution and customer relationship, may explain method deployment decisions.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Brinkkemper, S., Lyytinen, K. & Welke, R. K. (eds.) (1996) Method Engineering: Principles of Method Construction and Tool Support. Chapman & Hall, London.
Cockburn, A. (2002) Agile Software Development. Pearson Education, NJ.
Fitzgerald, B. (1997) The use of systems development methodologies in practice: A field study. The Information Systems Journal, 7(3), 201–212.
Fitzgerald, B. (1998) An empirical investigation into the adoption of systems development methodologies. Information and Management, 34, 317–328.
Fitzgerald, B., Russo, N. L. & Stolterman, E. (2002) Information Systems Development: Methods in Action. McGraw-Hill, New York.
Fitzgerald, B., Russo, N. & O'Kane, T. (2003) Software development method tailoring at Motorola. Communications of the ACM, 46 (4), 65–70.
Fitzgerald, B., Hartnett, G. & Conboy, K. (2006) Customising agile methods to software practices at Intel Shannon. European Journal of Information Systems, 15, 200–213.
Glaser, B. G. & Strauss, A. L. (1967) The Discovery of Grounded Theory. Aldine, Chicago.
Hardgrave, B., Davis, F. D. & Riemenschneider, C. K. (2003) Investigating determinants of software developers' intentions to follow methodologies. Journal of Management Information Systems, 20(1), 123–151.
Humphrey, W., Snyder, T. & Willis, R. (1991) Software process improvement at Hughes Aircraft. IEEE Software, 8 (4), 11–23.
Introna, L. D. & Whitley, E. A. (1997) Against method-ism: Exploring the limits of method. Information Technology and People, 10(1), 31–45.
Jarke, M., Pohl, K., Rolland, C. & Shmitt, J.-R. (1994) Experience-based method evaluation and improvement: A process modeling approach. In: Proceedings of the IFIP WG8.1 Working Conference on Methods and Associated Tools for the Information Systems Life Cycle, Verrijn-Stuart, A. A. & Olle, T. W. (eds.), pp. 1–27. Elsevier, New York.
Khalifa, M. & Verner, J. (2000) Drivers for software development method usage. IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, 47(3), 360–369.
Kumar, K. & Welke, R. J. (1992) Methodology engineering: A proposal for situation-specific methodology construction. In: Challenges and Strategies for Research in Systems Development, Cotterman, W. W. & Senn, J. A. (eds.), pp. 257–270. Wiley, Chichester.
Lyytinen, K. & Rose, G. M. (2006) Information system development agility as organizational learning. European Journal of Information Systems, 15, 183–199.
Madsen, S., Kautz, K. & Vidgen, R. (2006) A framework for understanding how a unique and local IS development method emerges in practice. European Journal of Information Systems, 15, 225–238.
Mathiassen, L. & Purao, S. (2002) Educating reflective systems developers. Information Systems Journal, 12, 81–102.
Päivärinta, T., Sein, M. K. & Peltola, T. (2007) From ideals towards practice: Paradigmatic mismatches and drifts in method deployment.Information Systems Journal.doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2575.2007.00256.x [online] [Accessed 22, Nov. 2007].
Russo, N. L. & Stolterman, E. (2000) Exploring the assumptions underlying information systems methodologies. Information Technology and People, 13 (4), 313–327.
Stolterman, E. (1992) How system developers think about design and methods. Scandinavian Journal of Information Systems, 3 (1), 137–150.
Strauss, A. L. & Corbin, J. M. (1990) Basics of Qualitative Research: Grounded Theory Procedures and Techniques. Sage, Newbury Park, CA.
Truex, D., Baskerville, R. & Travis, J. (2000) Amethodical systems development: The deferred meaning of systems development methods. Accounting, Management and Information Technologies, 10 (1), 53–79.
Whitley, E. A. (1998) Method-ism in practice: Investigating the relationship between method and understanding in Web page design. In: Proceedings of the Nineteenth International Conference on Information Systems, Hirschheim, R., Newman, M. & DeGross, J. I. (eds.), pp. 68–75. ICIS.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2009 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Päivärinta, T., Larsen, E.Å., Ingulfsvann, L., Kristiansen, Ø. (2009). Method Deployment in Small- and Medium-Sized Firms: Addressing the Organizational Context. In: Wojtkowski, W., Wojtkowski, G., Lang, M., Conboy, K., Barry, C. (eds) Information Systems Development. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-68772-8_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-68772-8_6
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA
Print ISBN: 978-0-387-30403-8
Online ISBN: 978-0-387-68772-8
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)