earticle

영어

A lack of a blueprint for digital transformation often precipitates firms to make ad hoc or short-term system development decisions. Digital debt refers to the build-up of technical and informational obligations related to business maintenance and evolvability that represent performance risks in a firm’s work processes, which may result in system failures and maintenance costs. Despite its significant impacts on business maintenance and evolvability, little is currently known about the mechanisms through which it is accrued. Using a case study of a software vendor who has served over a hundred client firms, this research develops and presents a theoretical framework of the accrual process of digital debt. Each of the stages results in a different form of digital debt that reinforces each other over time to form a vicious cycle.