An exploratory analysis of the state of software maintenance research. An author co‐citation analysis
| Pages | 117-130 |
| Published date | 01 May 2009 |
| Date | 01 May 2009 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/13287260910955093 |
| Author | Sam Ramanujan,Sridhar Nerur |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management |
Software
maintenance
research
117
Journal of Systems and Information
Technology
Vol. 11 No. 2, 2009
pp. 117-130
#Emerald Group Publishing Limited
1328-7265
DOI 10.1108/13287260910955093
An exploratory analysis of the
state of software maintenance
research
An author co-citation analysis
Sam Ramanujan
Harmon College of Business, University of Central Missouri,
Warrensburg, Missouri, USA, and
Sridhar Nerur
Department of Information Systems and Operations Management,
University of Texas at Arlington, Arlington, Texas, USA
Abstract
Purpose – Resources allocated to software maintenance constitutes a major portion of the total life
cycle cost of a system. The enormous effect that this can have on an organization’s ability to react to
dynamic environments has been the primary motivation for researchers to study issues related to
software maintenance. The purpose of this paper is to take stock of the research conducted in this
area in order to identify the intellectual trails embodied in the coherent body of knowledge on
software maintenance.
Design/methodology/approach – An authorco-citation analysis (ACA)involving authors who have
made seminal contributions to the fieldof software maintenance was performed.The data for the study
were obtained from the Science Citation Index (SCI) and the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI).
Findings – Theresultsindicate thatmostof thesoftwaremaintenanceresearchhas focusedoneight areas:
Programlogic characteristics,Qualityof processes/metrics,Effortandproductivityissues, Cognitiveissues
in repair maintenance, Organizational Issues: Strategies for software evolution/maintenance, Object-
oriented(OO) maintenance, Domain specificlanguage issues and Program constructionand design.
Researchlimitations/implications – Some ofthe limitations of this study include:exclusion of data
after2003, giving equal weight for allcitations, and implicit assumptionthat a relationshipexists between
the citingand cited documents.
Practicalimplications – The extensionof software maintenanceresearch in the areassuggested in this
studymay lead to new innovationsfor practice.
Originality/value – The paper notonly introduces new methodsfor meta analysis, it also suggeststhat
opportunities abound for extending the frontiers of software maintenance research, particularly in the
contextof contemporary software developmentapproaches.
Keywords Computer software, Maintenance, Research work
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
Software maintenance is generally defined as all activities that change software in
order to keep it operational and responsive to user needs (Gremillion, 1984). Even
though major portions of time and resources are devoted to it, top management, by
historically viewing software maintenance as simply mending defects in existing
systems (Swanson and Beath, 1989, 1990), failed to realize that software maintenance is
often an ‘‘iceberg’’ with low visibility but high potential for impacting the success or
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
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The authors thank Sandra Slaughter, Barbara Kitchenham, and Chris Kemerer for help in
validating the completeness of the list.
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