Title: A research perspective on technical debt in software development

Authors: Mitali Chugh; Neeraj Chugh; Rajesh Kumar Upadhyay; Rodrigo Spínola

Addresses: Department of Computer Applications, School of Computer Science, University of Petroleum and Energy Studies (UPES), Bidholi, Dehradun, 248007, India ' Department of Systemics, School of Computer Science, University of Petroleum and Energy Studies (UPES), Bidholi, Dehradun, 248007, India ' COER University, Roorkee, India ' Nazaré Salvador University, Largo da Palma s / n, Ana Nery Square, Brazil; State University of Bahia, Cabula Salvador, Rua Silveira Martins 2555, Brazil

Abstract: Technical debt (TD) in software development reflects the implied cost of surplus rework due to technical negotiations that can produce short-term advantage; however, it may affect the software system in the long-term. To better describe and comprehend TD research literature, a comprehensive literature assessment is important. Particularly, the bibliometric analysis would allow examining the research and facilitating the assessment of recent progress in the area to gather studies on TD and present citation and thematic analysis for a broad understanding of the TD research literature over the years. The bibliometric study is built on four research questions using the data collected from the Clarivate Analytics Web of Science database comprising 378 papers. The results of this bibliometric study can help to comprehend the scenario we have about the dissemination of results on the TD area over the years.

Keywords: technical debt; bibliometric study; thematic analysis.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBIS.2025.144392

International Journal of Business Information Systems, 2025 Vol.48 No.2, pp.167 - 199

Received: 23 May 2021
Accepted: 19 Jun 2021
Published online: 11 Feb 2025 *

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