On the relationship between process maturity and geographic distribution: an empirical analysis of their impact on software quality

Abstract

An extensive body of research has developed in the area of software processes improvement and maturity models. Despite being a quite influential body of work, little is known about how software process maturity models and improvement activities relate to a major trend in the software industry: geographic distribution of development activities. In this paper, we seek to achieve a better understanding of the relationship between software process maturity and geographic distribution. In particular, we studied their combined impact on software quality. Using data from a multi-national software development organization, our analyses revealed that process maturity and the multiple dimensions of distribution have a significant impact on the quality of software components. More importantly, our analyses showed that the benefits of increases in process maturity diminish as the development work becomes more distributed, a result that has major implications for future research work in the process and the global software engineering literature as well as important implications for practitioners.