Climate in Software Development Teams : Role of Task Interference and Procedural Justice

IntroductionThe software industry is a significant contributor to India's economic growth. Though the Indian software industry is growing at a tremendous rate, there are some macro- and micro-level challenges which have to be addressed. In most cases, software development is project-based, where the projects are handled by project teams. In order to improve the quality and efficiency of team outcomes we have to focus on the work-related and interpersonal processes of those software development teams. Especially team climate is a crucial factor which can influence the performance of the teams. Over the past three decades, the concept of climate has been a special area of focus for applied psychologists and organizational sociologists (Anderson & West, 1998). According to Anderson and West (1998), interaction between individuals, common goals, and task interdependence are some of the necessary conditions which can create shared understandings and behavioural expectations among the members.Team climate is found to be a crucial determinant of team performance (Agrell & Gustafson, 1994; Anderson & West, 1998) and an important predictor of work team innovation (Burningham & West, 1995). Since innovativeness is a crucial component of software development tasks, the significance of team climate in software development teams is very high.Research ObjectiveThe objective of the current study was to understand the effect of task interdpedence on the climate of software development teams and the moderating effect of procedural justice in this relationship