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Soft skills requirements in software development jobs: a cross‐cultural empirical study

Soft skills requirements in software development jobs: a cross‐cultural empirical study Purpose – Most of the studies carried out on human factor in software development concentrate primarily on personality traits. However, soft skills which largely help in determining personality traits have been given comparatively little attention by researchers. The purpose of this paper is to find out whether employers' soft skills requirements, as advertised in job postings, within different roles of software development, are similar across different cultures. Design/methodology/approach – The authors review the literature relating to soft skills before describing a study based on 500 job advertisements posted on well‐known recruitment sites from a range of geographical locations, including North America, Europe, Asia and Australia. The study makes use of nine defined soft skills to assess the level of demand for each of these skills related to individual job roles within the software industry. Findings – It was found that in the cases of designer, programmer and tester, substantial similarity exists for the requirements of soft skills, whereas only in the case of system analyst is dissimilarity present across different cultures. It was concluded that cultural difference does not have a major impact on the choice of soft skills requirements in hiring new employee in the case of the software development profession. Originality/value – Specific studies concerning soft skills and software development have been sporadic and often incidental, which highlights the originality of this work. Moreover, no concrete work has been reported in the area of soft skills and their demand as a part of job requirement sets in diverse cultures, which increases the value of this paper. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Journal of Systems and Information Technology Emerald Publishing

Soft skills requirements in software development jobs: a cross‐cultural empirical study

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Publisher
Emerald Publishing
Copyright
Copyright © 2012 Emerald Group Publishing Limited. All rights reserved.
ISSN
1328-7265
DOI
10.1108/13287261211221137
Publisher site
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Abstract

Purpose – Most of the studies carried out on human factor in software development concentrate primarily on personality traits. However, soft skills which largely help in determining personality traits have been given comparatively little attention by researchers. The purpose of this paper is to find out whether employers' soft skills requirements, as advertised in job postings, within different roles of software development, are similar across different cultures. Design/methodology/approach – The authors review the literature relating to soft skills before describing a study based on 500 job advertisements posted on well‐known recruitment sites from a range of geographical locations, including North America, Europe, Asia and Australia. The study makes use of nine defined soft skills to assess the level of demand for each of these skills related to individual job roles within the software industry. Findings – It was found that in the cases of designer, programmer and tester, substantial similarity exists for the requirements of soft skills, whereas only in the case of system analyst is dissimilarity present across different cultures. It was concluded that cultural difference does not have a major impact on the choice of soft skills requirements in hiring new employee in the case of the software development profession. Originality/value – Specific studies concerning soft skills and software development have been sporadic and often incidental, which highlights the originality of this work. Moreover, no concrete work has been reported in the area of soft skills and their demand as a part of job requirement sets in diverse cultures, which increases the value of this paper.

Journal

Journal of Systems and Information Technology – Emerald Publishing

Published: Mar 17, 2012

Keywords: Jobs; Recruitment advertising; Skills; Computer software; Interpersonal skills; Soft skills; Non‐technical skills; Diversity in software development; Human factors; National cultures

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