Climate and product quality in software development teams: assessing the mediating role of problem solving and learning
Atif Açıkgöz, Ayşe Günsel, Cemil Kuzey · Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University Institutional Repository · 2015
The popularity of new product development has been increasing in knowledgeintensive organizations as a means to manage aggressive competition. Given the criticality of product development to the performance of many organizations, it is important to unveil the mechanisms that support problem solving. In line with the relevant literature, this study examined the relationships among team climate, team problem solving, team learning, and software quality. As well, this study explored the mediating effect of team problem solving on the relationship between team climate and team learning, and the mediating effect of team learning on the relationship between team problem solving and software quality. By using 139 questionnaires from different projects, structural equation modeling was employed as a statistical analysis tool to investigate the given hypotheses. The findings showed that (i) team climate was positively related to team problem solving, ii) team problem solving positively influenced team learning, iii) team learning was positively associated with software quality. In addition, the results indicated that the relationships between team climate and team learning was partially mediated by team problem solving, while the relationship between team problem solving and software quality was partially mediated by team learning. The implications for both theory and practice are discussed.