Effects of participative management on the performanace of software development teams

Abstract

Researchers and practitioners advocate a participative management style for improving employee productivity and job satisfaction. Field studies have shown that participation has a modest, yet positive influence on productivity and job satisfaction. For software development teams, however, management approaches such as the notion of the chief programmer suggest that participation might not be productive. Systematic research has not been conducted to investigate the importance of a participative management style when managing software development teams. In this study we examine the relationship between software development team members' participative style and team performance. We collected survey data from 573 respondents of 91 software development teams. 112 business and IS managers provided the performance ratings for the study. Findings suggest that two contextual factors, team size and the professional experience of team members moderate the relationship between participation and performance. In small teams that consist of experienced members, participation is strongly associated with team performance. Also, in large teams that consist of relatively inexperienced members, participation is significantly related to team performance. Other findings and implications are discussed in the paper.