A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW ON SOCIO-TECHNICAL CONGRUENCE

Abstract

Software development is a critical task that requires team effort and effective coordination among team members. The optimized coordination proportion brings team members together to efficiently perform organizational activities. To control the level of coordination, there are numerous techniques applied in the literature. Socio-Technical Congruence (STC) is one of these existing techniques that help to measure the balance between technical and social aspects of an organization at various stages of software development. The key aim of the proposed work is to perform a systematic review of existing STC-related studies to identify their prominent features and significance in software development. The relevant publications were collected from different databases, including journal articles, conferences, and proceedings, mainly published in the period of 2008 to 2024. A detailed analysis was used to identify the related studies in accordance with the proposed research questions. The results of the review contain a sufficient number of studies that highlight different aspects, characteristics, significance, and new trends in the domain of STC. The proposed study outcomes provide various dimensions of STC with some future suggestions for researchers. Although the literature provides many studies related to STC, till now, only one study exists that mainly discusses the risk of overwhelming STC, so this area of research can be further investigated. The existing STC studies identify the congruence gap, but none have provided an appropriate solution to overcome the identified gap using or building a tool, so this area needs to be addressed. Additionally, the existing STC measurement techniques were generally adaptations of Cataldo et al.'s or Kwan et al.’s work, setting STC measurement for the development phase of the project life cycle. Only a few of the techniques have been discussed in other related phases, such as the requirements or testing phase, or throughout the project life cycle. As STC is a multi-dimensional technique that can cover all levels of the project life cycle, this area of study needs more research.