Socio-Technical Grounded Theory for Software Engineering

Grounded Theory (GT), a sociological research method designed to study social phenomena, is increasingly being used investigate the human and aspects of software engineering (SE). However, written by for sociologists, GT often challenging majority SE researchers understand apply. Additionally, attempting ad hoc adaptations traditional guidelines modern socio-technical (ST) contexts struggle in absence clear relevant do so, resulting poor quality studies. To overcome these community challenges leverage opportunities, this paper presents Socio-Technical Theory (STGT) ease application achieve outcomes. It defines what exactly meant an ST context STGT that expand GT's philosophical foundations, provide increased clarity flexibility its methodological steps procedures, define possible scope application, encourage frequent reporting variety interim, preliminary, mature outcomes, introduce nuanced evaluation different hoped related disciplines such as computer science, data artificial intelligence, information systems, computer/robot/AI interaction, human-centered emerging technologies (and other transformed rapid digitalisation AI-based augmentation), will benefit from applying conduct studies systematically produce rich findings theories with confidence.