The Interpretation and Legitimization of Values in Agile's Organizing Vision

The growing popularity of Agile methods motivates our interest in its value foundations, publicized in information technology (IT) community discourse. IT community discourses provide key functions of interpretation, legitimization and mobilization. Conceptualized as organizing visions, these community discourses provide knowledge about how an IT innovation, such as Agile, should be applied in the organization. The strong orientation towards values in Agile methods has its foundation in the Agile Manifesto. Previous research into the impact of values on the adoption and diffusion of IT innovations expose its importance to software development methods. Using the Lasswell value framework, this paper investigates how values in the organizing vision of Agile are interpreted and legitimized by contributors to its community discourse. The findings propose that Agile’s value patterns, which are represented by values wealth, enlightenment, skill and power, are a combination of its value foundations and practical business needs. The similarities of the values patterns found across Agile contributors also show that these values are part of an early-institutionalized element of its organizing vision. The similarities and nature of the values also represent a moral legitimacy strategy.