The relationship between organizational culture and the deployment of agile methods

Context: Systems development normally takes place in a specific organizational context, including organizational culture. Previous research has identified organizational culture as a factor that potentially affects the deployment systems development methods. Objective: The purpose is to analyze the relationship between organizational culture and the post-adoption deployment of agile methods. Method: This study is a theory development exercise. Based on the Competing Values Model of organizational culture, the paper proposes a number of hypotheses about the relationship between organizational culture and the deployment: of agile methods. Results: Inspired by the agile methods thirteen new hypotheses are introduced and discussed. They have interesting implications, when contrasted with ad hoc development and with traditional systems development methods. Conclusion: Because of the conceptual richness of organizational culture and the ambiguity of the concept of agility the relationship between organizational culture and the deployment of agile systems development forms a rich and interesting research topic. Recognizing that the Competing Values Model represents just one view of organizational culture, the paper introduces a number of alternative conceptions and identifies several interesting paths for future research into the relationship between organizational culture and agile methods deployment. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.