An Empirical Study of Adoption Levels of Software Management Practices Within European Firms

Software is vital for the success of most firms today. However, software crises are common and examples abound of situations where the competitiveness of firms has been threatened by failures in the production and/or deployment of software. In addition, there is a paucity of published research about the adoption of software management practices within firms. This paper describes an empirical study of the adoption levels of software management practices within 882 European firms from 15 countries and 9 sectors. Management practices in five areas are surveyed: organizational issues, standards and procedures, metrics, control of the development process, and tools and technology. Our study shows that there are statistically significant differences in the adoption of software management practices across the surveyed countries and sectors. Companies in leading countries and sectors tend to have adopted more practices related to organizational issues, standards and procedures, and metrics. Areas for further investment in software management practices within specific sectors and countries are also outlined. In addition, managers can benchmark the adoption of software management practices within their own organization against firms in our sample and come to useful conclusions about improving their management of software