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In this paper, we draw on control theory to understand the conditions under which the use of agile practices is most effective in improving software project quality. Although agile development methodologies offer the potential of improving software development outcomes, limited research has examined how project managers can structure the software development environment to maximize the benefits of agile methodology use during a project. As a result, project managers have little guidance on how to manage teams who are using agile methodologies. Arguing that the most effective control modes are those that provide teams with autonomy in determining the methods for achieving project objectives, we propose hypotheses related to the interaction between control modes, agile methodology use, and requirements change. We test the model in a field study of 862 software developers in 110 teams. The model explains substantial variance in four objective measures of project quality—bug severity, component complexity, coordinative complexity, and dynamic complexity. Results largely support our hypotheses, highlighting the interplay between project control, agile methodology use, and requirements change. The findings contribute to extant literature by integrating control theory into the growing literature on agile methodology use and by identifying specific contingencies affecting the efficacy of different control modes. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our results.

Despite the popularity of agile methods in software development and increasing adoption by organizations there is debate about what agility is and how it is achieved. The debate suffers from a lack of understanding of agile concepts and how agile software development is practiced. This paper develops a framework for the organization of agile software development that identifies enablers and inhibitors of agility and the emergent capabilities of agile teams. The work is grounded in complex adaptive systems (CAS) and draws on three principles of coevolving systems: match coevolutionary change rate, maximize self-organizing, and synchronize exploitation and exploration. These principles are used to study the processes of two software development teams, one a team using eXtreme Programming (XP) and the other a team using a more traditional, waterfall-based development cycle. From the cases a framework for the organization of agile software development is developed. Time pacing, self-management with discipline and routinization of exploration are among the agile enablers found in the cases studies while event pacing, centralized management, and lack of resources allocated to exploration are found to be inhibitors to agility. Emergent capabilities of agile teams that are identified from the research include coevolution of business value, sustainable working with rhythm, sharing and team learning, and collective mindfulness.

While prior research has found that familiarity is beneficial to team performance, it is not clear whether different kinds of familiarity are more or less beneficial when the work has different types of complexity. In this paper, we theorize how task and team familiarity interact with task and team coordination complexity to influence team performance. We posit that task familiarity is more beneficial with more complex tasks (i.e., tasks that are larger or with more complex structures) and that team familiarity is more beneficial when team coordination is more difficult (i.e., for larger or geographically dispersed teams). Finally, we propose that the effects of task familiarity and team familiarity on team performance are complementary. Based on a field study of geographically distributed software teams, two of our hypotheses are disconfirmed: Our results show that the beneficial effects of task familiarity decline when tasks are more structurally complex and are independent of task size. Conversely, the hypotheses for team familiarity are confirmed as the benefit of team familiarity for team performance is enhanced when team coordination is more challenging-i.e., when teams are larger or geographically dispersed. Finally, surprisingly, we find that task and team familiarity are more substitutive than complementary in their joint effects on team performance: Task familiarity improves team performance more strongly when team familiarity is weak and vice versa. Our study contributes by revealing how different types of familiarity can enhance team performance in a real-world setting where the task and its coordination can be highly complex.

Compared to people without disabilities, people with disabilities experience significant health disparities. The recent move toward virtual health care-like online appointments, patient portals, and remote patient monitoring-offered an opportunity to address those inequities. Virtual health care can reduce costs, increase access, streamline communication, and improve the management of chronic conditions. Unfortunately, many of these technologies are inaccessible to patients with disabilities, despite legal obligations requiring providers to offer accessible, nondiscriminatory health care. This Article argues that the lack of accessible virtual health care constitutes an innovation failure: Accessible products and services could-and in fact should-exist but do not. It then considers the reasons for this failure and offers suggestions to inspire accessible design, using both antidiscrimination law and innovation policy.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has been labeled an existential threat. Proposals to combat this menace include industry pauses on the development of advanced AI, legislated moratoria, and creation of a new federal agency with the power to regulate and license advanced AI.

Outsourcing of software development allows a business to focus on its core competency and take advantage of vendors' technical expertise, economies of scale and scope, and their ability to smooth labor demand fluctuations across several clients. However, contracting a software project to an outside developer is often quite challenging because of information asymmetry and incentive divergence. A typical software development contract must deal with a variety of interrelated issues such as the quality of the developed system, the timeliness of delivery, the effort and cost associated with the project, the contract payment, and the postdelivery software support. This paper presents a contract-theoretic model that incorporates these factors to analyze how software outsourcing contracts can be designed. We find that despite their relative inefficiency, fixed-price contracts are often appropriate for simple software projects that require short development time. Time-and-materials contracts work well for more complex projects when the auditing process is efficient and effective. We also examine a type of performance-based contract called quality-level agreement and find that the first-best solution can be reached with such a contract. Finally, we consider profit-sharing contracts that are useful in situations where the developer has more bargaining power.

This paper addresses scheduling challenges in software development organizations, specifically focusing on a novel version of the software project scheduling problem (SPSP). This enhanced model incorporates the dynamics of learning and forgetting phenomena, crucial in maintaining employee competencies, particularly when unexpected events such as absenteeism or shifts in project priorities occur. The paper introduces a new declarative reference model for SPSP, aimed at proactively managing the assignment of versatile programmers to tasks within an portfolio of IT projects, while considering the effects of forgetting. Implemented within a constraints programming environment, this model facilitates decision making in project management for software companies. It serves to find feasible solutions and identify conditions necessary to meet specified expectations. The effectiveness of the proposed SPSP model is demonstrated through numerical examples.

Research related to intellectual capital (IC) concerns its use and impact on the selected results achieved by enterprises. IC is analysed as a single stream of enterprises’ internal resources. Since IC is used in the business activities of enterprises, it must also be acquired. However, research conducted so far does not cover the area of IC acquisition. The purpose of this paper is to present the results of research undertaken in a relatively new area of IC acquisition that has not been scientifically explored over a research period of several years. The research covered innovative small and medium enterprises (SMEs) that were developing software in Poland from 2005 to 2019. The data series allowed the use of dedicated analysis tools, including the dynamic changes over time, multidimensional comparison and cluster analysis. The primary conclusions revealed that the acquisition of IC is a process that takes place simultaneously and continuously in two independent streams—internal and external—and that the external sources of IC were more important for SMEs covered by the research. Continued research will allow comparative analyses between various branches or sectors of the economy to bring new knowledge about the importance of IC to the business activities of enterprises.

Abstract Growing reliance on third-party services, such as cloud computing, is believed to increase client firms’ exposure to third-party induced cyber incidents. However, we lack empirical research on the prevalence and scale of third-party induced cyber incidents. Moreover, we do not know who pays more of the price for experiencing these incidents—the client firm and/or the third-party provider firm. We study these questions using a sample of 1397 cyber incidents in public firms between 2000 and 2020 of which 246 are third-party induced incidents. Our findings offer several novel insights. Third-party induced cyber incidents are not growing in prevalence any faster than other incidents, but they do compromise greater volumes of confidential data per incident. As to the price paid for third-party induced incidents, the picture is more nuanced. Client (first-party) firms suffer drops in equity returns that are comparable to those for homegrown incidents, while small third-party provider firms suffer significantly larger drops in equity returns and large third-party provider firms do not suffer a discernible drop in equity returns. We discuss implications of these findings for client firms and service providers.