Uncertainty profile and software project performance: A cross-national comparison

Many software projects are inevitably associated with various types and degrees of uncertainty. It is not uncommon to see software project spiral out of control with escalated resource requirements. Thus, risk management techniques are critical issues to information system researchers. Previous empirical studies of US software firms support the adoption of development standardization and user requirement analysis techniques in risk-based software project management. Using data collected from software projects developed in Korea during 1999-2000, we conduct a comparative study to determine how risk management strategies impact software product and process performance in countries with dissimilar IT capabilities. In addition, we offer an alternative conceptualization of residual performance risk. We show that the use of residual performance risk as an intervening variable is inappropriate in IT developing countries like Korea where the role of late stage risk control remedies are critical. A revised model is proposed that generates more reliable empirical implications for Korean software projects.

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