A survey on project factors that motivate Finnish software engineers

Abstract

Previous studies suggest that motivation is a critical factor in developer productivity and project outcome, i.e., software project failures are significantly associated with low motivation of software teams. Surveys with software engineers also indicate that culture can affect software development team motivation through differences in developers' motivational factors. In this study, we conduct a survey with 15 Finnish software engineers and 21 non-Finnish software engineers who live in Finland to investigate 1) the relationship between team motivation and project outcome, and 2) the factors that motivate Finnish software engineers. We compare the motivational factors found from the Finnish data with those identified in prior research with developers from four different countries. An analysis of the data from our 36 subjects indicates that project outcome is not associated with team motivation in Finland though this result contradicts prior research. There is a single motivational factor, “team work” that appears to be culturally independent. Unique team motivational factors for Finnish software engineers are found to be “the authority of project manager” and “the vision of project manager”. Our results indicate that cultural differences affect team motivation and that project managers need to consider these when working in a global environment.