Workinq Paper Series

Software reuse in the presence of a repository and object-based CASE tool is likely to be "biased. " Prior research (Banker, K a u f k m and Zweig, 1991) showed that a developer wilI be: most likely to reuse her own objects; somewhat less likely to reuse objects developed by her project team members; and, wen less Likely to reuse objects stored in the repository, but developed elsewhere in the corporation. This paper characterizes this problem in terms of three familiarity biases: personal bias, project bias and time bias. In the presence of these biases it is appropriate to deploy tools that support the search for software reuse, so that they may be overcome. However, the tools that are chosen or created for this purpose must adequately treat the technical and cognitive fundamentals for individual developers, and recognize the organizationai and economic perspectives of a firm that wishes to maximize the business value of its software development activities