An analysis of related software cycles among organizations, people and the software industry

• Main Author: Adams, Brady.
• Other Authors: Cook, Glenn R.
• Published: Monterey California. Naval Postgraduate School 2012
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10945/4105

There is a need to understand cycles associated with software upgrades as they effect people, organizations and the software industry. This thesis intends to explore the moderating factors of these three distinct and disjointed cycles and propose courses of action towards mitigating various issues and problems inherent in the software upgrade process. This thesis will acknowledge that three related but disjointed cycles are common in many software upgrade ventures in today's organizations: a. End-user characteristics in adapting to new software b. Organizational ability to adopt new software c. The software industry's motivation and processes in introducing new software Realizing the importance of these related cycles involves developing an understanding of several aspects we research in this study. First, awareness in understanding why users adopt new software and the demographic factors involved, such as gender, age and experience are considered. Second, we present how organizations integrate new software by exploring factors such as cost, time, reliability and benefit analysis. Last, we provide evidence supporting motivating forces and factors behind software introduction rates within the software industry. These important aspects together culminate in cyclical phenomenon managers and executives need to be aware of, as implementing new software upgrades have become an inevitable undertaking in most of today's organizations.