Rethinking the Concept of Commitment in Software Process Improvement

Authors

Pekka Abrahamsson, University of Oulu, FinlandFollow

Abstract

Literature and practice has agreed that commitment plays an important role in software process improvement (SPI)[1] initiatives. However, the concept of commitment has not been seriously researched in the SPI community. This paper seeks to provide a synthesis of contemporary commitment literature – giving SPI research and practice a new perspective on the phenomenon. It is shown that current thinking relies on models of commitment that are flawed in both academic and practical sense. Namely, four misconceptions [2] are identified in current thinking: 1) the assumption of causality in the human cognitive processes, i.e., commitment in this case), 2) the controllability of this process, 3) the notion of a singular commitment construct, and 4) the idea that commitment is an all-positive phenomenon. Implications of these findings for SPI research and practice are discussed.

Recommended Citation

Abrahamsson, Pekka (2001) "Rethinking the Concept of Commitment in Software Process Improvement," Scandinavian Journal of Information Systems: Vol. 13: Iss. 1, Article 1.
Available at: https://aisel.aisnet.org/sjis/vol13/iss1/1