Abstract
The primary role of testers is to verify and validate the software produced by developers
to ensure its quality. Testing is designed to catch problems in the software and report
them for correction, so it is a conflict-laden, confrontational, and judgmental process.
This "audit" role of testing is inherently adversarial, ensuring the development of
components of interpersonal conflict judgments between developers and testers. Prior
research indicates that such conflict is likely to be negatively associated with software
quality and job satisfaction, producing negative judgments about the artifact production
process and about the job itself. This study addresses the question: How do judgments
of conflict between developers and testers impact the software development process?
The authors develop and empirically test a research model which proposes that the
conflict judgment targets of both the tasks and the persons who perform them will
have direct impact on both software quality and job satisfaction judgments. Results
of testing this model indicate that interpersonal judgments arising from conflict,
as well as judgments made by testers and developers about the conflict targets of
tasks and persons negatively influence subsequent software quality and job satisfaction
judgments. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.