What has culture to do with SPI?

This paper addresses cross-cultural issues in software process improvement (SPI). Cultural factors, which may have a bearing on successful adoption and implementation of software quality management systems, were identified during a field-study in five countries. A self-assessment model, called CODES, has been developed for use by organisations developing software in different parts of the world. The CODES model includes two sub-models. One of the sub-models, called the C.HI.D.DI typology tries to identify the national culture and the second sub-model called the top-down bottom-up model tries to identify the organisational culture and structure. The CODES model investigates to what degree there is a fit between the organisational and the national culture and aims to predict a suitable software quality management system.