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Zhang, X., Dhaliwal, J., and Gillenson, M.L., 2010. “Organizing Software Testing For
Improved Quality And Satisfaction”, Journal of Information Technology Management, (21:4), pp. 1-12.
The way testing is organized for software development has not been adequately addressed
in both the practitioner and academic research literature. In practice, a diverse
set of methods is being used to organize testing. Some organizations emphasize one-to-one
matching between developers and testers while others do not. Additionally, some organizations
have a distinct testing unit for their testing professionals while others have them
in the same unit as developers. Such practices are also influenced by the development
methodologies of the organization such as the lifecycle and agile approaches. This
paper attempts to shed light on whether these governance choices matter. It considers
the influence of the development methods, the existence of one-to-one matching between
developers and testers, and the existence of a distinct corporate testing unit on
software quality and job satisfaction. The results of this study suggest that development
methods do not significantly influence software quality or job satisfaction. However,
one-to-one matching of developers and testers has a positive influence on both software
quality and job satisfaction. The existence of a dedicated organizational unit for
software testing also has a positive influence on the quality of software developed.
These results suggest that organizations must emphasize one-to-one matching and a
distinct testing unit for improved software quality and job satisfaction.
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