The development of knowledge embeddedness in CASE technologies within organizations

Computer-aided software engineering (CASE) has become an important part of the information technology landscape and software development activities. While researchers have examined the productivity gains associated with CASE, relatively little attention has been accorded to one of the critical elements of CASE: the repository. The CASE repository is considered to be the cornerstone of CASE technology platforms. Therefore, any plan for CASE tool implementation must include a plan for building and managing the repository. Yet, significant challenges are encountered in efforts to fashion the CASE repository as an active source of relevant systems development knowledge in organizations. This study investigates the influence of factors that are believed to facilitate knowledge embeddedness within the CASE repository. Knowledge embeddedness refers to the extent to which relevant systems development knowledge in an organization has been codified and stored within the CASE repository. Data drawn from 176 firms employing CASE environments are used to investigate the relative influence of these factors. The results indicate that management support, methodology influence, time since adoption, and external knowledge links enable success in knowledge embeddedness.