Kumulative Dissertation, Otto-Friedrich-Universität Bamberg, 2026

Since the introduction of the Agile Manifesto (Beck et al., 2001), ASD has become an indispensable development approach for the software industry, having received widespread adoption in practice (Digital.ai, 2024) and sparking a strong interest in research (Baham & Hirschheim, 2022; Dingsøyr et al., 2012). However, despite being practiced and researched for over two decades, knowledge on ASD’s benefits and issues still lacks thorough systematizations. In addition, due to a “lack of theoretical glue” (Conboy, 2009, p. 344) for the fundamental concept of agility, and the decontextualization of ASD (Kruchten, 2007, 2011) in research, also insights into how and when ASD contributes to outcomes remained inconclusive. Therefore, the main objective of this dissertation is to provide scholars and practitioners with a comprehensive understanding of the spectrum of outcomes of ASD, and to inform them about how agility, different ASD practices, and contextual factors contribute to the benefits and issues that are associated with the methodologies. With systematic reviews of empirical findings from the ASD domain, this dissertation offers a structured overview of the outcome spectrum of ASD methodologies. The reviews on the benefits of ASD clarify the multidimensionality of ASD’s business value, while highlighting that financial effects are not a prominent benefit. Instead, ASD especially benefits the developers, the team, the SD process, the customer, and the product. Regarding ASD practices contributing to these benefits, the dissertation offers a systematization of ASD practices and beneficial outcomes, finding that social/PM practices especially benefit the developers, the team, and the customer. Tech- nical/SE practices, meanwhile, particularly contribute benefits for the SD process and the product. To add, an empirical study on social/PM practices suggests that they stimulate several social agile principles, thereby fostering developer and economic benefits. Meanwhile, a literature study on the dark side of ASD reveals that issues are strongly interrelated, where several of them stand out as catalysts for other issues. In this regard, an empirical study investigates how such critical issues affect the delivery of business value, highlighting the consequences in case of an inadequate mitigation. To enable a mitigation of such critical issues and avoid their consequences, also a set of adaptation measures is derived. Furthermore, the dissertation sheds light on the key characteristics of agility that influence the outcomes of ASD. Communication is a key aspect that needs to be ensured for any benefit, while lacking customer involvement causes various issues. Furthermore, inspect and adapt cycles, as well as iterative development, can be a double-edged sword. Without them, most benefits are not realizable, while an excessive execution of these agility characteristics triggers critical issues, suggesting that agility must be adequately balanced. Lastly, the dissertation proposes a model of key contextual factors for ASD, together with a sweet spot that outlines an ideal context setting. The model suggests that ASD is highly sensitive to the context in which it is practiced, and that using it outside of its ideal operating window contributes to various issues. Finally, this model helps to counteract the decontextualization of ASD in research (Kruchten, 2007, 2011), reminding future studies to lay more emphasis on the key role of contextual factors. In sum, this dissertation provides theoretical and empirical insights, combined with practical suggestions, on the diverse spectrum of benefits and issues associated with ASD methodologies. The findings inform research and practice about the characteristics of the business value of ASD methodologies and their dark side, while offering insights into how ASD practices, the concept of agility, and the characteristics of contextual settings contribute to the benefits and issues of ASD. Thereby, this cumulative dissertation can serve as a foundation for future studies that further investigate “if, how, why and when ASD impacts outcomes” (Baham & Hirschheim, 2022, p. 107).