ABSTRACT

Technical debt refers to maintenance obligations that stem from violations of established standards during the development and subsequent maintenance of enterprise systems. Technical debt remediation is particularly challenging in the outsourcing context due to information asymmetry between client and vendor teams. Control balancing—the periodic adjustments to the control configurations of outsourced projects—has been proposed as a process to help mitigate these information asymmetry challenges. Using data collected from 1,824 real-world projects, we tested to what extent control balancing improves the remediation of technical debt. After controlling for a number of technical and environmental factors, including system size, system lifespan, and contract parameters, we find that control balancing can benefit technical debt remediation, but primarily when processes for migrating technical debt-laden systems to new technological platforms have been identified. We highlight the role of technical debt in influencing the effects of relational flexibility in inter-firm engagements.

摘要

技术债务是指在企业系统的开发和后续维护过程中，由于违反既定标准而引起的维护义务。由于客户团队和供应商团队之间的信息不对称，技术债务补救在外包环境中尤其具有挑战性。控制平衡有人建议对外包项目的控制配置进行定期调整，以帮助缓解这些信息不对称的挑战。使用从1,824个现实项目中收集的数据，我们测试了控制平衡在多大程度上改善了技术债务的补救。在控制了许多技术和环境因素之后，包括系统规模，系统寿命和合同参数，我们发现控制平衡可以使技术债务补救受益，但主要是在已经将承担技术债务的系统迁移到新技术平台的过程中确定。我们强调了技术债务在影响公司间业务中关系灵活性的影响方面的作用。