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Direct and mediating influences of user-developer perception gaps in requirements understanding on user participation

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Abstract

User participation is considered an effective way to conduct requirements engineering, but user-developer perception gaps in requirements understanding occur frequently. Since user participation in practice is not as active as we expect and the requirements perception gap has been recognized as a risk that negatively affects projects, exploring whether user-developer perception gaps in requirements understanding will hinder user participation is worthwhile. This will help develop a greater comprehension of the intertwined relationship between user participation and perception gap, a topic that has not yet been extensively examined. This study investigates the direct and mediating influences of user-developer requirements perception gaps on user participation by integrating requirements uncertainty and top management support. Survey data collected from 140 subjects were examined and analyzed using structural equation modeling. The results indicate that perception gaps have a direct negative effect on user participation and negate completely the positive effect of top management support on user participation. Additionally, perception gaps do not have a mediating effect between requirements uncertainty and user participation because requirements uncertainty does not significantly and directly affect user participation, but requirements uncertainty indirectly influences user participation due to its significant direct effect on perception gaps. The theoretical and practical implications are discussed, and limitations and possible future research areas are identified.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank the survey respondents for providing valuable data. This research was supported by the China Scholarship Council (CSC).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Software, Beihang University, No. 37 Xueyuan Road, Haidian District, Beijing, 100191, China

    Jingdong Jia

  2. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Western University, London, ON, N6A5B9, Canada

    Luiz Fernando Capretz

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  1. Jingdong Jia
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  2. Luiz Fernando Capretz
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Correspondence to Jingdong Jia.

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Appendices

Appendix 1

See Table 6.

Table 6 Measurements of constructs
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Appendix 2

See Table 7.

Table 7 Characteristics of the organizations and projects of respondents
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Jia, J., Capretz, L.F. Direct and mediating influences of user-developer perception gaps in requirements understanding on user participation. Requirements Eng 23, 277–290 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00766-017-0266-x

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