Thomas Kude

Approaches to Collaborative Software Development

Software development is becoming more and more complex. Traditionally and to date, the software development process rather corresponds to job-shop manufacturing. Therefore, the ever growing demands for different kinds of software as well as the ongoing globalization require more efficient development processes. Both scientific literature and practical experience hence postulate a necessary industrialization of software development and design of novel forms of specialization, task distribution, and collaboration. Existing approaches to collaborative software development can be classified and analyzed according to multiple categories. By evaluating these, current deficiencies are identified and discussed for further investigation.

Coordination in Large-Scale Agile Software Development: A Multiteam Systems Perspective

The widespread use of lean and agile development methods shows a fundamental shift in how organizations try to cope with complexity and volatility issues. In large-scale settings, the coordination of many people often results in a team of teams setup. We introduce the multiteam systems perspective to describe different conceptual strategy types for inter-team coordination. These types are illustrated with examples from a large enterprise software development organization.

Agile Methodologies for Distributed Collaborative Development of Enterprise Applications

Managing large distributed software projects for enterprise applications with traditional methodologies designed for collocated teams often leads to high planning and management overheads. The sequential and plan-driven traditional approaches often do not allow for an adequate reaction to changes in requirements. Today, Extreme Programming (XP) is the most popular agile development methodology. This paper analyzes how and to what extent XP can be transferred to distributed development projects for large enterprise applications. The focus is on XP in particular, since it is the most common agile methodology in practice and has the highest congruence to the original Agile Manifesto.

Structural and Behavioral Fit in Software Sourcing Alignment

In recent years, the corporate software ecosystem has been subject to tremendous changes. Vendors are increasingly offering enterprise systems in a Software-as-a-Service setting. For most of their applications, client companies can now choose between developing software in-house or sourcing packaged software in an on-premises or on-demand mode. However, no attempt has been made so far to explicitly compare these three sourcing arrangements with each other in terms of alignment and performance. The presented paper makes a contribution to fill this research gap. Drawing upon the ontological view of information systems, we develop a novel understanding of software sourcing arrangements. Based on exploratory case studies that are analyzed in the light of extant literature, we examine different types of fit arising from a structural and behavioral dimension of software sourcing. We further show how these types of fit are interrelated and discuss their performance implications.

The Impact of Software-as-a-Service on Software Ecosystems

The trend towards cloud-based applications changes the way customers run their businesses, but also the way software is sold and delivered. This affects software ecosystems and the way software vendors interact and manage their partners. In order to explore on the impacts, we conducted a single-case study by examining a globally leading software vendor of both, traditional on-premises software as well as cloud solutions. The study reveals new insights on how the SaaS revolution impacts partner management within software ecosystems from a vendor perspective, for instance that successful cloud partners may not necessarily come from a cloud background.

Disciplined Autonomy and Innovation Effectiveness: The Role of Team Efficacy and Task Volatility

This study examines the effect of disciplined autonomy within information systems development (ISD) work teams on innovation effectiveness. Within self-managed ISD teams, disciplined autonomy is of...

Governance Practices in Platform Ecosystems: Navigating Tensions Between Cocreated Value and Governance Costs

Based on an exploratory multiple-case study in two platform ecosystems, we develop a process theory that explains how and why different ways of practicing ecosystem-wide governance are more or less successful in navigating the tension between cocreated value and governance costs. Our process theory shows that how ecosystem-wide rules and values are practiced considerably varies and changes over time. Initially, governance practices follow ecosystem-wide rules; if and how practices shift toward going beyond the rules hinges on specific necessary conditions. Irrespective of which governance route is taken, the tension between cocreated value and governance costs is more successfully addressed if practices are sensitive to ecosystem-wide values. The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/isre.2017.0701.

The Sourcing of Software Services: Knowledge Specificity and the Role of Trust

Transaction cost economics (TCE) is the most prominent theory for studying questions surrounding information systems (IS) outsourcing. Its most widely tested argument is that client-specific services are rather kept in-house due to the high transaction costs which arise for safeguarding against opportunistic behavior. However, empirical support for this argument has so far been inconclusive. We seek to resolve this inconsistency by following two recommendations in prior literature. First, we extend TCE by considering trust differences between internal employees and vendor staff as a context factor. Second, we explicitly account for TCEs economic rationale by acknowledging that client-specific knowledge influences both transaction cost and production cost differences between in-house and outsourced IS services. Using data from 139 organizations on the sourcing of software development and maintenance services, we found support for our theoretical extension. For IS services requiring client-specific knowledge, in-house transaction cost advantages were particularly high if more trust was put in in-house personnel compared to vendor staff. Production costs were generally lower in-house when knowledge specificity was high. Both in-house transaction and production cost advantages were associated with lower degrees of outsourcing. The results explicate an important boundary condition of TCE and help shed light on the so far inconclusive empirical results regarding the role of asset specificity in explaining IS outsourcing decisions. The insights help decision makers by providing a better understanding of the economics of IS sourcing and the important role of trust.

The Emergence of Partnership Networks in the Enterprise Application Development Industry: A Global Corporation Perspective

Within the IS development industry, incumbent system developers (hubs) are increasingly embracing partnerships with less well established companies acting in specific niches (spokes). This paper seeks to develop a better understanding of the motives for this strategy. Relying on existing work on strategic alliance formation, it is argued that partnering is particularly attractive for hubs if these small companies possess certain capabilities that are difficult to obtain through other arrangements than partnering. Drawing on the literature, three categories of capabilities are identified: the capability to innovate within their niche, the capability to provide a specific functionality that can be integrated with the incumbents’ systems, and the capability to address novel markets. These factors are analyzed through a single-case study. The case represents a market leader in the global IS development industry, which fosters a network of smaller partner firms. The study reveals that temporal dynamics between the identified factors exist in these networks. A cyclical partnership model is developed that attempts to explain the life cycle of partnerships within such a network.

Knowledge Boundaries in Enterprise Software Platform Development: Antecedents and Consequences for Platform Governance

The widespread uptake of platform strategies turns many vendors of enterprise software into curators of an ecosystem of firms that collaboratively develop and commercialize a shared technology. As a platform owners effectiveness in integrating knowledge across ecosystem participants will distinguish it from its competitors, we investigate the management of development‐related knowledge across firm boundaries. Our exploratory, multiple‐case study of 4 platforms illustrates how “knowledge boundaries” emerge between platform owners and complementors. We observe that knowledge boundaries are influenced by a platforms functional extent, interface design, and evolutionary dynamics, which create differences, dependencies, and novelty of development knowledge, resulting in qualitatively distinct types of knowledge boundaries. To overcome knowledge boundaries, platform owners provide various resources at the boundary, including information portals, documentation, helpdesks, and alignment workshops. We observe that in shaping these resources, platform owners face a trade‐off between providing knowledge at the right scope, while allowing for the scalability of knowledge resources for the entire ecosystem. Depending on their scope and scale, we classify knowledge boundary resources as broadcasting, brokering, and bridging, each representing qualitatively distinct patterns in managing knowledge in platform ecosystems. We conclude with implications for researchers and managers.