Models of motivation in software engineering

Sharp, Helen; Baddoo, Nathan; Beecham, Sarah; Hall, Tracy and Robinson, Hugh (2009). Models of motivation in software engineering. Information and Software Technology, 51(1) pp. 219–233.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.infsof.2008.05.009

Abstract

Motivation in software engineering is recognized as a key success factor for software projects, but although there are many papers written about motivation in software engineering, the field lacks a comprehensive overview of the area. In particular, several models of motivation have been proposed, but they either rely heavily on one particular model (the job characteristics model), or are quite disparate and difficult to combine. Using the results from our previous systematic literature review (SLR), we constructed a new model of motivation in software engineering. We then compared this new model with existing models and refined it based on this comparison. This paper summarises the SLR results, presents the important existing models found in the literature and explains the development of our new model of motivation in software engineering.