Abstract
The adoption of quality assurance methods based on software process improvement models has been regarded as an important source of variability in software productivity. Some companies perceive that their implementation has prohibitive costs, whereas some authors identify in their use a way to comply with software development patterns and standards, produce economic value and lead to corporate performance improvement. In this paper, we investigate the relationship between quality maturity levels and labor productivity, using a data set containing 687 Brazilian software firms. We study here the relationship between labor productivity, as measured through the annual gross revenue per worker ratio, and quality levels, which were appraised from 2006 to 2012 according to two distinct software process improvement models: MPS.BR and CMMI. We perform independent statistical tests using appraisals carried out according to each of these models, consequently obtaining a data set with as many observations as possible, in order to seek strong support for our research. We first show that MPS.BR and CMMI appraised quality maturity levels are correlated, but we find no statistical evidence that they are related to higher labor productivity or productivity growth. On the contrary, we present evidence suggesting that average labor productivity is higher in software companies without appraised quality levels. Moreover, our analyses suggest that companies with appraised quality maturity levels are more or less productive depending on factors such as their business nature, main origin of capital and maintained quality level.
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Notes
CVM is the Brazilian Securities and Exchanges Commission.
We chose to adopt a smaller than usual significance level since the beginning of research because we consider the consequences of type I errors (rejecting the null hypothesis when it is true) more serious than type II errors (accepting the main hypothesis when it is false).
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Acknowledgments
The author wishes to thank the Softex Society administration, for providing a compilation of historical data concerning MPS.BR appraisals, as well as to Luiz Paulo Alves Franca and some anonymous reviewers, for their helpful comments and criticism on earlier versions of this paper.
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Communicated by: Filippo Lanubile
This paper is an extended version of Duarte (2014). Although we adopt the same research methodology and report the same conclusions here, our data sets were revised and extended with data from financial statements and market research reports not available at the time of that publication. The assumptions, views and opinions in this paper are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy, strategy or position of any Brazilian government entity.
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C. Duarte, C.H. Productivity paradoxes revisited. Empir Software Eng 22, 818–847 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10664-016-9453-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10664-016-9453-5