Relevant Organizational Values in the Implementation of Software Process Improvement Initiatives

Abstract

In a globalized world, organizational culture plays an important role in companies since it represents one of the main factors of business success in competitive scenarios. Organizational culture is defined by a set of attitudes, behaviors, norms and beliefs that may guide the life of a company. Organizational values can ensure a common understanding among everyone in the organization, provided that they are shared by all their members. This study describes the results of a systematic literature review on typological model of organizational culture in order to identify organizational values for characterizing the organizational culture in a company. Additionally, we managed a survey to researchers and practitioners analyzing which organizational values are most relevant to a software organization involved with a software process improvement (SPI) initiative. In this paper, we describe forty organizational values identified in the systematic review, and we give particular emphasis in the values the survey results indicate as the main ones that influence the adoption/maintenance of SPI initiatives, i.e., (i) being committed to a high-quality policy for products, services, and processes; (ii) having a well-defined and established vision and goals; and (iii) imposing responsibilities on the team members for meeting deadlines and achieving goals.