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Agile principles have been widely used in software development team practice since the creation of the Agile Manifesto. Studies have examined variables related to agile principles without systematically considering the relationships among key team, agile methodology, and process variables underlying the agile principles and how these variables jointly influence the achievement of software development agility. In this study, the authors tested a team/methodology–process–agility model that links team variables (team autonomy and team competence) and methodological variable (iterative development) to process variables (communication and collaborative decision-making), which are in turn linked to software development agility (ability to sense, respond and learn).

Survey data from one hundred and sixty software development professionals were analyzed using structural equation modeling methods.

The results support the team/methodology–process–agility model. Process variables (communication and collaborative decision-making) mediated the effects of team (autonomy and competence) and methodological (iterative development) variables on software development agility. In addition, team, methodology and process variables had different effects on the three dimensions of software development agility.

The results contribute to the literature on organizational IT management by establishing a team/methodology–process–agility model that can serve as a basis for developing a core theoretical foundation underlying agile principles and practices. The results also have practical implications for organizations in understanding and managing holistically the different roles that agile methodological, team and process factors play in achieving software development agility.

The purpose of this paper is to explore and analyze communication patterns and bridging activities to be able to describe communication barriers in an interorganizational enterprise resource planning (ERP) project and some ways to overcome those.

The empirical arena was an interorganizational ERP-project, which implemented an On-Premise ERP-system. The goal for the team, assembled from both the buyer and supplier, was to implement an ERP-system, with a fixed price calculated from the expected resources and time needed, half a year. Participant observations, complementary interviews and documentation studies were accomplished, to be able to find and describe communication barriers for organizational development.

Communication barriers were found, such as technnological concerns, micro-level discussions, limited bridging activities and openness to change.

The present study, concerning one single, interorganizational ERP-project provides a starting point for further research concerning communication barriers in ERP-projects. Further research could look at the implications communication barriers could have for the buyer and supplier organization in a long term.

In managerial implications, some ways to overcome those barriers are discussed.

Communication barriers found, and their impact on knowledge development within interorganizational ERP-projects, is described. The paper offers a starting point for future research concerning communication barriers. Results could be used of managers to understand communication barriers and their implications for knowledge development and organizational change.

This paper aims to evaluate the antecedents of franchise relationship development from the perspective of a sample of Chinese and Turkish franchisees.

This study explores relationship development through semi-structured interviews with Chinese and Turkish franchisees.

The findings of the study demonstrated that both the culturally adapted role performance of franchisors and communication geared towards knowledge transfer contribute to relationship development with franchisees.

This exploratory study evaluated the influence of role performance and communication as factors influencing relationship development. Further research could explore other factors in other countries and industries.

To build and develop long-term relationships with franchisees, franchisors need to invest in continuously improving their franchise infrastructures and enhancing their brand reputations. Communication and knowledge transfer between the franchisors and the franchisees are crucial for the management of dynamic relationships.

This paper advances franchising literature by offering a combined and complementary theoretical perspective to our understanding of the influence of power and social investments in relationship development between franchisees and franchisors. In particular, the study identifies role performance of franchisor and communication with franchisees as the key antecedents of relationship development.

This study looks at how local grassroots organizations as well as international Women Non-Governmental Organizations (WNGOs) and multilateral organizations such as the United Nations utilize social media to empower women in Jamaica and Brazil. The researchers also evaluate how issues of socio-economic background as well as social media infrastructure influence the selection of entities with which the respective WNGOS connect.

This study uses NodeXL, a social media research tool, to analyze the information found on WNGO social media pages such as Facebook and Twitter. The authors also use content analysis to make sense of the data on WNGO Facebook pages. The study specifically uses summative content analysis, a method that translates the frequency of occurrence of certain symbols into summary judgments and comparisons.

Social media usage by WNGOs in Jamaica and Brazil show striking similarities regarding who gets reached or are connected to the networks. The study reveals that women of lower socio-economic backgrounds in both cases are not being reached via social media. Further, the outcomes of the observed current social media communication patterns on WNGO social media sites suggest the occurrence of what the authors refer to as the “noticeboard” effect, wherein communication patterns are top-down, exclusive, and non-reciprocal in nature.

While social media offer less centralized ways of engaging in communication with local communities, inherent in social media infrastructure are issues of race, gender, and social class that affect how these communication platforms are used, potentially another dimension of the “Mathew Effect” in the context of social media usage for purposes of achieving national development objectives.

With the rise in internet penetration in both countries, WNGOs are increasingly incorporating social media into their communication strategies to accomplish development goals. This study is the first to compare both countries in this respect and so adds new insights to this area of the communication field.

The following is an introductory profile of the fastest growing firms over the three-year period of the study listed by corporate reputation ranking order. The business activities in which the firms are engaged are outlined to provide background information for the reader.

The purpose of this paper is to explore communication challenges related to geographic distance, with emphasis on differences in national culture and language between R&D and manufacturing engineers, in a development project faced with uncertainty and equivocality.

The results originate from a longitudinal single-case study of a commercial product development project.

Three communication challenges are identified: clarity of shared information, intention to share information, and responsiveness to information received. The challenges are strongly associated with differences in national culture and language. The study also indicates that the communication challenges cannot only be handled by the use of rich communication media, but also by employment of communication media of low richness such as e-mails or “picture books”.

The single-case study approach limits the ability to generalize the findings. Future research should thus focus on additional studies of geographically separated R&D and manufacturing.

The results from the study provide important insights for the management of product development in geographically dispersed settings. The findings emphasize the need to consider potential differences in national culture and language within a product development team. Acknowledging these differences and managing them properly can support efficiency of product development projects.

The purpose of this research is to study how communication executives perceive their internal and external legitimacy, how they reflect on recent developments in their work, and which future challenges they perceive as being important.

The approach takes the form of in‐depth interviews with communication executives.

Communication executives have a distinct strategic managerial role within their organizations. The executive role involves three different performances: the organizational leader; the communication leader; and the communication manager. Executives perceived high external legitimacy, whereas internal legitimacy varied between organizations, and status and formal position were both dynamic and subject to negotiation. The communication technology development, termed as a “revolution”, has considerably affected executives' work. Future communication challenges such as globalization and organizational change were discussed.

Recent changes have strengthened the roles of the communication executives. Internal status and legitimacy appear to be dependent on the attitudes of the other executives. These relationships and the emerging executive roles will be an important basis for study in future research.

Internal legitimacy was clearly an issue of negotiation, which is important for practitioners to consider. Acting out the educational role, working with communication support and the coaching of managers, and initiating and pursuing strategic organizational issues may be means by which communication executives are further able to enhance their internal legitimacy.

New insights with regard to the legitimacy, practice and self‐perceptions of communication executives are provided. This is the first study of Swedish communication executives, adding to the knowledge base derived from studies from The Netherlands, UK and USA.

Socioeconomic stress has been a major influence on organizational development during the past decade, and will continue for the foreseeable future. This treatise aims to focus on The Key and its importance for effective organizational development via leadership responses to communication challenges during the present era. It is a conceptual paper based on an actual case.

The Key is a concept that refers to the thoughts and feelings (based on attitudes) that a leader reflects in communications and interactions with his/her universe, a universe that exists both internally within an organization as well as externally to it. The case focuses on communication challenges encountered by Judith Campbell, executive vice president of Creative Innovations, Ltd, and her interaction with Jonathan Bryant, president of Bryant and Associates, Ltd, an organizational development firm. Communication challenges that had arisen primarily due to socioeconomic stress, were seven in number: tendency to rely on only logical thinking; negative responses to external influences; lack of expectations for positive results; tendency toward reliance on sensory input; actions that ignore an inclusive perspective; failure to value and trust in change; and lack of commitment to interactive relations.

Following Bryant's counsel, Campbell chose to address these communication challenges with a training seminar that focused on a paradigm of seven leadership responses related to The Key. These were: Paradoxical thinking; Controlled reflecting; Intentional focusing; Instinctive responding; Inclusive behaving; Purposeful trusting; and Relational being. The training program, as described herein, proved to be very enlightening to the participants and quite effective for the continued organizational development of the firm.

The paper reveals the results of a training program based on seven communication challenges the results of which can be used to aid in continued organizational development of a firm.

The purpose of the paper is to find out the knowledge requirements and its effect on both onsite and offshore project work division for development, re-engineering and maintenance projects in Indian outsourcing software industry in different phases of software development.

This study employs an expert interview approach in Indian software industry to find out knowledge requirement for project execution and division of work between onsite and offshore locations. The requisite data were collected through expert interviews and direct observations.

The study found that the development projects require higher level of domain, strategic, business process and operation process knowledge in comparison to re-engineering and maintenance projects. So there is a need of higher onsite presence in development projects. The maintenance work is taken up at the offshore location in a phase-wise manner.

The implication of the study is in the development of a broad framework of knowledge requirements and work division in on-shore and offshore locations for Indian software outsourcing projects. As the study is based on expert opinion in the context of India, it cannot be generalized for outsourcing scenarios elsewhere.

The software project manager can use the findings to get more insight into the project and divide the software team between onsite and offshore location.

The study is novel, as there is little attempt at finding the knowledge requirement to execute various kinds of business software development in outsourcing environment in the context of India.

The purpose of this study is to deconstruct the term “tribalism” for its application to foster context and industry-based corporate social responsibility (CSR) communication system in Nigeria.

This research used both the qualitative and quantitative research methods of data collection; it is an in-depth survey with multiple data collection settings.

(1) There is a pattern of CSR communication across the three industries sampled. (2) CSR across three industrial sectors is much about “donation” and “gift”. (3) CSR functions are now in a stand-alone corporate communication department. (4) CSR communication lacks the participatory mechanism to really involve the host communities' concerns. (5) Across the four organizations, CSR communication is often as financial or annual reports. (6) There is a general feeling and understanding that CSR and corporate communication in corporate organizations in n Nigeria require a more participatory mechanism. (7) CSR policy in Nigeria is till much of legal enforcement and efforts to have a national CSR commission has gone beyond legislation process.

This research was only able to collect data from four selected organizations representing just three industrial sectors (freight-forward, banking/finance and insurance) in Nigeria. There was no external funding to capture more organizations.

The first implication of the findings of this study is that, for the practice of CSR and communication by corporate organizations in Nigeria, the system is much a top-down and non-participatory. This means host communities and other stakeholders do not have considerable participation in the organization's CSR and communication process. The companies in this study select or budget for CSR interventions they consider valuable to communities in most cases. This pattern of CSR operation cuts across the four selected organizations in this study. Thus, it could be argued that this pattern is an industrial/national phenomenon because all the respondents indicated that their organizations operate CSR based on what other related companies do in Nigeria. Second, the fact that CSR and communication by corporate organizations in Nigeria are regulatory influenced means many organizations may try to evade CSR activities by not budgeting for it.

Meanwhile, in this study, deconstructing the evolutionary perspective which sees tribe as a primitive form of organization and relation characterized by the absence of a centralized collaborative system, it is argued that tribalism can catalyze systemic participation and oneness. In line with this perspective, tribal corporate organizations in Nigeria would model an alliance for CSR and communication system on proximity of operational context, that is, Nigeria. Being part of a tribe, corporate organizations as against the public ones will represent an identity reference for social corporate communication in Nigeria.

Despite the theoretical problematic issues raised by the notion of tribe, it is deconstructed in this study to define modes of social organization, and it reflects native perceptions of a changing collective identity. Thus, it is also argued in this study, that there will be an increase in works on tribalism in organization communication and CSR in Nigeria as emerging business and global market will continue to shape the operation environment.