Deborah J. Armstrong

The quarks of object-oriented development

A two-construct taxonomy is used to define the essential elements of object orientation through analysis of existing literature.

Person-Job Cognitive Style Fit for Software Developers: The Effect on Strain and Performance

Software developers face a constant barrage of innovations designed to improve the development environment. Yet stress/strain among software developers has been steadily increasing and is at an all-time high, while their productivity is often questioned. Why, if these innovations are meant to improve the environment, are developers more stressed and less productive than they should be? Using a combination of cognitive style and person-environment fit theories as the theoretical lens, this study examines one potential source of stress/strain and productivity impediment among software developers. Specifically, this paper examines the fit between the preferred cognitive style of a software developer and his or her perception of the cognitive style required by the job environment, and the effect of that fit on stress/strain and performance. Data collected from a field study of 123 (object-oriented) software developers suggest that performance decreases and stress increases as this gap between cognitive styles becomes wider. Using surface response methodology, the precise fit relationship is modeled. The interaction of the developer and the environment provides explanatory power above and beyond either of the factors separately, suggesting that studies examining strain and performance of developers should explicitly consider and measure the cognitive style fit between the software developer and the software development environment. In practice, managers can use the results to help recognize misfit, its consequences, and the appropriate interventions (such as training or person/task matching).

Information Technology Employees in State Government: A Study of Affective Organizational Commitment, Job Involvement, and Job Satisfaction

This article explores the affective organizational commitment, job involvement, and job satisfaction of an increasingly important segment of the public sector workforce: information technology (IT) employees in state government. We propose a model that explores job characteristics and work experiences variables that together influence affective organizational commitment, job satisfaction, and job involvement. Using canonical correlation analysis, we find that role ambiguity, perceived organizational support, leader—member exchange, and task variety are the independent variables that together explain most of the variance in the affective organizational commitment and job satisfaction of IT employees working for one-state government. In contrast to findings based on private sector IT employees, our analysis does not identify major gender differences. Taken together, these findings advance our understanding of affective commitment and job satisfaction within the public sector and provide agency managers actionable ideas on how to retain valuable IT employees.

The Role of Mentoring and Supervisor Support for State IT Employees' Affective Organizational Commitment:

This article assesses the effects of psychosocial and career mentoring, leader—member exchange (LMX), and gender on the affective organizational commitment (AOC) of information technology (IT) employees working in one state government. Few studies have examined the relationship between mentoring and associated antecedents of the AOC of IT employees, and none has examined these relationships for public-sector workforces. The research finds that when both psychosocial and career mentoring are considered, only psychosocial mentoring was significant in predicting the AOC of state government IT employees. When considering just LMX, it was significant in predicting AOC. Neither psychosocial mentoring nor career mentoring was significant in predicting AOC if LMX is also considered. No gender differences were found for any of the variables examined.

Software process improvement: it's a journey, not a destination

Realizing the benefits of continuous software process improvement.

Understanding mindshift learning: the transition to object-oriented development

Information systems professionals increasingly face changes in their work environment. Some of these changes are incremental, but many require fundamental shifts in mindset (referred to as a mindshift). Within the domain of software development, previous research has determined that veteran developers experience difficulty making the transition to new forms of development. Although prior research has brought awareness to the problems caused by a mindshift and has provided some insight, it has not answered the question of why software developers have difficulty making the transition. This study begins to answer that question by positing and examining the mindshift learning theory (MLT). The MLT suggests that the degree of perceived novelty of the fundamental concepts that characterize the new mindset will impact learning. Specifically, concepts may be perceived as novel (i.e., not familiar to the learner), changed (i.e., similar to a known concept, but a different meaning in the new context), or carryover (i.e., known concept with a similar meaning in the new context). As an exemplar mindshift learning situation, this study explores the phenomenon in the context of software developers transitioning from traditional to object-oriented (OO) software development. Findings indicate that software developers had higher knowledge scores on the OO concepts they perceived as novel or carryover compared to those they perceived as changed. Thus, developers experienced detrimental interference from their existing traditional software development knowledge structure when trying to learn OO software development. The findings have implications for organizations and individuals as an understanding of mindshifts could mean an easier transition through decreased frustration and a more effective learning process.

Barriers facing women in the IT work force

The percentage of women working in Information Technology (IT) is falling as revealed by the 2003 Information Technology Association of America (ITAA) Blue Ribbon Panel on Information Technology (IT) Diversity report; the percentage of women in the IT workforce fell to 34.9% in 2002 down from 41% in 1996. Several studies have indicated this issue is reaching a crisis level and needs to be explored. Women working in IT at a Fortune 500 company were asked what workplace barriers they faced that had influenced their voluntary turnover decisions or the decisions of their female counterparts. Revealed causal mapping was used to evoke representations of the cognitions surrounding the barriers women face in the IT field. A causal map was developed that indicated womens actual turnover was linked to their views of their family responsibilities, the stresses they face within the workplace, various qualities of their jobs, and the flexibility they were given to determine their work schedule. Their statements regarding the barriers they faced in terms of promotion opportunities (both perceived and actual) were linked to the same four concepts. Interestingly, there was no link between promotion opportunities and voluntary turnover. Reciprocal relationships were identified between managing family responsibility and stress, work schedule flexibility and stress, managing family responsibility and job qualities, and job qualities and stress. Discrimination and lack of consistency in how management treated employees, while important, were not central to how the women in this sample thought about issues related to promotion and voluntary turnover.

The Impact of Career Mentoring and Psychosocial Mentoring on Affective Organizational Commitment, Job Involvement, and Turnover Intention

This study explores the relationships between career and psychosocial mentoring, and the employee outcomes of affective organizational commitment (AOC), job involvement, and turnover intention. The relationships between psychosocial mentoring and the employee outcomes of AOC and turnover intention were significant. Building from affective events theory, the authors found that AOC mediated the relationship between psychosocial mentoring and employee turnover intention. The study emphasizes the importance of emotion and affect by showing that employees who experienced positive mentoring events at work exhibited higher levels of AOC, which in turn led to reduced turnover intention. The implications are discussed.

Perspectives on challenges facing women in IS: the cognitive gender gap

The persistently low number of women in the information systems (IS) field has led to numerous inquiries about barriers women might face to entry and advancement in the profession. Because IS has traditionally been male dominated, masculine values tend to predominate in the profession. In the current study, same sex focus groups of male and female managers discussed challenges women in IS face that their male colleagues might not. By simultaneously analyzing the perceptions of male and female IS managers, we identified areas of overlap and divergence in the concepts as well as in the linkages between the concepts. Although the men and womens maps shared 10 concepts, none of the linkages between the concepts were the same in the two maps. We thus find that men and women have little cognitive overlap about the challenges that women face. Overall, male participants generally realize that women face a number of challenges associated with female gender role expectations, and more generally challenges they encounter in their workplaces and in the IS field. Their understanding of the challenges, however, appears to be superficial. We call on organizations and the IS profession to devise novel responses and training approaches to promote change in the IS culture.

Affective commitment in the public sector: the case of IT employees

To improve our understanding of individual motivations to remain employed in governmental agencies this study focuses on a specific segment of a state government agency workforce. Information technology (IT) employees possess skills that transfer easily to other sectors, which make them an important group when examining factors that influence the affective commitment and job satisfaction of individuals working in public agencies. Findings indicate that role ambiguity, perceived organizational support, leader member exchange, and task variety are the independent variables that explain most of the variance in affective public sector commitment and job satisfaction.