Title: Substance or superstition? The dissemination dynamics of Business Analysis, Agile and DevOps as trending fashionable techniques of the digital era

Authors: Eren Onay; Mehmet Ercek

Addresses: Graduate School, Istanbul Technical University, Maslak, Istanbul, 34469, Turkey ' Management Engineering Department, Istanbul Technical University, Maslak, Istanbul, 34469, Turkey

Abstract: This study aims to explore the diffusion patterns of business analysis, agile project management (APM) and development and operations (DevOps) as trending fashionable management techniques that target the risks of and solutions for digitalisation in an emerging economy context. Building on trending and semantically related fashion research, we intend to question whether business organisations rely on superstitious learning that is motivated by quick-fix rhetorics and ritual adoption, or real learning that is driven by accumulative resource and repository development. Upon assessing the global discursive diffusion patterns of each technique, a field study was conducted in Turkey, which covered 303 companies to explore the substantive diffusion patterns of these techniques in large sized firms. The results not only supported the trending of fashionable techniques in their substantive use, but also verified considerable reliance on real learning practices, indicated by prior use of other techniques and gradual building on prior expertise.

Keywords: management fashions; management fads; management innovation; adoption; dissemination; diffusion; business analysis; APM; agile project management; DevOps; development and operations.

DOI: 10.1504/IJASM.2025.147866

International Journal of Agile Systems and Management, 2025 Vol.18 No.3/4, pp.447 - 483

Received: 20 Sep 2023
Accepted: 25 Jul 2024
Published online: 05 Aug 2025 *

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