Why replacing legacy systems is so hard in global software development: An information infrastructure perspective

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingArticle in proceedingsResearchpeer-review

We report on an ethnographic study of an outsourcing global software development (GSD) setup between a Danish IT company and an Indian IT vendor developing a system to replace a legacy system for social services administration in Denmark. Physical distance and GSD collaboration issues tend to be obvious explanations for why GSD tasks fail to reach completion; however, we account for the difficulties within the technical nature of the software system task. We use the framework of information infrastructure to show how replacing a legacy system in governmental information infrastructures includes the work of tracing back to knowledge concerning law, technical specifications, as well as how information infrastructures have dynamically evolved over time. Not easily carried out in a GSD setup is the work around technical tasks that requires careful examination of mundane technical aspects, standards, and bureaucratic forms, as well as the excavation work that keeps the information infrastructure afloat.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationCSCW 2015 - Proceedings of the 2015 ACM International Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing
Number of pages15
PublisherAssociation for Computing Machinery, Inc.
Publication date28 Feb 2015
Pages876-890
ISBN (Electronic)9781450329224
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 28 Feb 2015
Externally publishedYes
Event18th ACM International Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing, CSCW 2015 - BC, Canada
Duration: 14 Mar 201518 Mar 2015

Conference

Conference18th ACM International Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing, CSCW 2015
LandCanada
ByBC
Periode14/03/201518/03/2015
SponsorACM SIGCHI, et al., Facebook, GRAND, Microsoft Research, National Science Foundation (NSF)

    Research areas

  • ethnographic study, excavation work, Global software development (GSD), information infrastructure, interface integration, legacy systems, outsourcing, system interfaces

ID: 225660409