How Temporal Work Styles and Product Modularity Influence Software Quality and Job Satisfaction

This paper investigates how two key outcomes in software development-software quality and job satisfaction of software developers-are influenced by product modularity and developers' temporal work style, i.e., the preferences for completing the bulk of work closer to the deadlines. We argue that high deadline orientation positively interacts with product modularity to influence software quality and job satisfaction of developers. An empirical test using a unique data set on more than 140 software developers working at a large global software vendor confirms our hypotheses. We contribute to the literature on software development by showing that software quality and job satisfaction can be increased by matching the fit between technological characteristics of the software product and people factors (i.e., the preferred temporal work style of developers). Our study has wider implications for literature on temporal work styles and product modularity and can be informative for practitioners who are tasked with hiring or allocating software developers for software products with varying modularity.