Managing the software process
People, Organizations, and Process Improvement
IEEE Software
Information systems innovation among organizations
Management Science
Software quality and the Capability Maturity Model
Communications of the ACM
Growing systems in emergent organizations
Communications of the ACM
Empirical research in information systems: the practice of relevance
MIS Quarterly - Special issue on intensive research in information systems
A set of principles for conducting and evaluating interpretive field studies in information systems
MIS Quarterly - Special issue on intensive research in information systems
Quality management in systems development: an organizational system perspective
MIS Quarterly - Special issue on Intensive research in information systems: using qualitative, interpretive, and case methods to study information technology—third installment
A Critical Look at Software Capability Evaluations
IEEE Software
Improving Software Process Improvement
IEEE Software
Measuring the ROI of Software Process Improvement
IEEE Software
Prescription, description, reflection: the shape of the software process improvement field
International Journal of Information Management: The Journal for Information Professionals
Proceedings of the 1st international conference on Theory and practice of electronic governance
Integrating Markets to Bridge Supply and Demand for Knowledge Intensive Tasks
EC-Web 2009 Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on E-Commerce and Web Technologies
Empirical validation of the Classic Change Curve on a software technology change project
Information and Software Technology
Improving the efficiency of use of software engineering practices using product patterns
Information Sciences: an International Journal
Software Process Improvement as organizational change: A metaphorical analysis of the literature
Journal of Systems and Software
Qualitative research on software development: a longitudinal case study methodology
Empirical Software Engineering
Practical experiences in modelling software engineering practices: The project patterns approach
Software Quality Control
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This paper presents a framework that draws on Structuration theory and dialectical hermeneutics to explicate the dynamics of software process improvement (SPI) in a packaged software organisation. Adding to the growing body of qualitative research, this approach overcomes some of the criticisms of interpretive studies, especially the need for the research to be reflexive in nature. Our longitudinal analysis of the case study shows SPI to be an emergent rather than a deterministic activity: the design and action of the change process are shown to be intertwined and shaped by their context. This understanding is based upon a structurational perspective that highlights how the unfolding/realisation of the process improvement (intent) are enabled and constrained by their context. The work builds on the recognition that the improvements can be understood from an organisational learning perspective. Fresh insights to the improvement process are developed by recognising the role of the individual to influence the improvement through facilitating or resisting the changes. The understanding gained here can be applied by organisations to enable them to improve the effectiveness of their SPI programmes, and so improve the quality of their software.