The diary study: a workplace-oriented research tool to guide laboratory efforts
CHI '93 Proceedings of the INTERACT '93 and CHI '93 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
Motivating and Managing Computer Personnel
Motivating and Managing Computer Personnel
Affective commitment in the public sector: the case of IT employees
Proceedings of the 2006 ACM SIGMIS CPR conference on computer personnel research: Forty four years of computer personnel research: achievements, challenges & the future
On the difficulty of replicating human subjects studies in software engineering
Proceedings of the 30th international conference on Software engineering
Motivation in Software Engineering: A systematic literature review
Information and Software Technology
What Do We Know about Developer Motivation?
IEEE Software
An examination of daily information needs and sharing opportunities
Proceedings of the 2008 ACM conference on Computer supported cooperative work
Models of motivation in software engineering
Information and Software Technology
Guidelines for conducting and reporting case study research in software engineering
Empirical Software Engineering
A systematic review of theory use in studies investigating the motivations of software engineers
ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology (TOSEM)
Job satisfaction and motivation in a large agile team
XP'07 Proceedings of the 8th international conference on Agile processes in software engineering and extreme programming
Synthesizing evidence in software engineering research
Proceedings of the 2010 ACM-IEEE International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement
Software Engineers' Perceptions of Factors in Motivation: The Work, People, Obstacles
ESEM '11 Proceedings of the 2011 International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement
SBES '12 Proceedings of the 2012 26th Brazilian Symposium on Software Engineering
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Context: The research about motivation in software engineering has provided important insights into characterizing factors and outcomes related to motivation. However, the complex relationships among these factors, including the moderating and mediating effects of organisational and individual characteristics, still require deeper explanatory investigation. Objective: Our general goal is to build explanatory theories of motivation in different software organisations and to integrate these local theories towards a comprehensive understanding of the role of motivation in the effectiveness of the individuals and the teams in which they work. In this article, we describe the integrative synthesis of the results of two case studies performed with software organisations in different business contexts. Method: We performed two case studies using a multiple-case, replication design, focusing on the software engineers as the unit of analysis. For 13months, we conducted semi structured interviews, diary studies, and document analyses, and analysed the collected data using grounded theory procedures. The results of the two cases were synthesized using a meta-ethnography supported process. Results: We built translations of the concepts and propositions from the two studies into one another. We then used the translations to build a central story of motivation that synthesizes the individual stories. This synthesis is contextualized by the differences in organisational and individual characteristics. Conclusion: The differences in organisational contexts and in the characteristics of the software engineers in each study provided rich explanations for contrasts in perceptions and feelings about motivation in both organisations. The theory that emerged from the synthesis, supported by these explanations, provides a deeper understanding of the interplay between motivators and outcomes, and the needs and personal goals of the software engineers. This theory also characterises the role of team cohesion in motivation, advancing previous models about motivation in software engineering.