Balancing Efficiency and Flexibility in Software Project: The Role of Team Collective Improvisation, behavioral integration, and member diversity

The successful management of software (SW) projects is a continuous concern to managers, which is attributed to the contradictory demands that most projects are facing; meeting user requirements within time and budget limit while flexibly dealing risks during the progress of the projects. The present study asserts project performance and risk mitigation are not trade- off but to be achieved simultaneously, which is called SW project ambidexterity. Drawing on the literature on organizational behavior, hypotheses are developed speculating the relation among project performance, risk mitigation, team collective improvisation, team behavioral integration, and team diversity. Using empirical data collected from 102 SW project teams of 507 team members in South Korea, empirical analysis indicates team collective improvisation is a significant antecedent to SW project ambidexterity, playing a pivotal role to balance the contradictory demands. Furthermore, team behavioral integration positively influences the degree of team collective improvisation, and the magnitude of the relation is partially contingent on the team members’ age and major diversity. The present study advances theory by providing a context specific explanation about the SW project ambidexterity and its precedents.