Tensions around the adoption and evolution of software quality management systems: a discourse analytic approach

Ethnographically-informed empirical studies of software practice

“…We used ethnography [16] to provide a framework for studying the culture of a setting, and for uncovering the knowledge, ideas, beliefs and values which inform activity. We used discourse analysis [28] to focus on the structures of text to explore people's interactions and interpretations, and uncover the ways in which cultural attitudes are transmitted, discussed, developed and perpetuated [43].…”

Using Metaphor to Analyse Qualitative Data: Vulcans and Humans in Software Development

“…The quality process was often talked about by our interviewees as though the need for an SQMS was Fclear_ and Fobvious,_ i.e., putting one in place was logically right and unquestionable (Sharp et al, 2003). For example, in the data we gathered for our initial analysis, there were many references to the rational language used to express quality procedures.…”

“…We then relate our new statements to the information gleaned at this fifth company. This data was collected before the metaphor analysis had been done, and so our interview questions were not related to the issues we identified, but were guided by the same concerns as the original semi-structured interviews (see Sharp et al, 2003).…”

“…The data used in our initial analysis was explored using discourse analysis and one of the themes we identified was that of tensions around the quality process (see Sharp et al (2003) for more details.) Specifically, we found that tension appears to be present where any or all of the following are true:…”

“…This data was analysed using discourse analysis, framed by ethnographic observations, and the results revealed some of the tensions that exist around the adoption and evolution of software quality management systems. A brief description of the original study including the companies involved and a summary of the results from the discourse analysis is given in the Appendix; more detail can be found in Sharp et al (2003Sharp et al ( , 2004. These results resonated with findings from other researchers in a variety of fields, e.g., those of Baddoo and Hall (2002); Buono and Bowditch (1989) and Williams et al (1993), but we wanted to examine the data from a new perspective to identify further insights about the quality process.…”