THE IMPACT OF GOALS ON SOFTWARE PROJECT MANAGEMENT: AN EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION
Authors: Abdel-Hamid, Tarek K.; Sengupta, Kishore; Swett, Clint
Journal: MIS Quarterly (1999)
DOI: 10.2307/249488
Over the last three decades, a significant stream of research in organizational behavior has established the importance of goals in regulating human behavior. The precise degree of association between goals and action, however, remains an empirical question since people may, for example, make errors and/or lack the ability to attain their goals. This may be particularly true in dynamically complex task environments, such as the management of software development. To date, goal setting research in the software engineering field has emphasized the development of tools to identify, structure, and measure software development goals. In contrast, there has been little microempirical analysis of how goals affect managerial decision behavior. The current study attempts to address this research problem. It investigated the impact of different project goals on software project planning and resource allocation decisions and, in turn, on project performance. The research question was explored through a role-playing project simulation game in which subjects played the role of software project managers. Two multigoal structures were tested, one for cost/schedule and the other quality/schedule.…