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Global Teams: Collaborating Across Borders and Time Zones

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... Likewise, a recent study of (Tang et al., 2011) shows the importance of KM perspectives when there are many stakeholders involved, as GSE is mesh of stakeholders. Therefore, we have adopted Carmel (1999) solutions in this research study and our contribution is to supplement it with KM practices/tools to solve challenges of RU in GSE, because RU is affected by GSE challenges (Khan et al., 2011) as shown in Fig. 1. Therefore, we have considered these challenges as RU challenges in GSE. ...
... : According to Carmel (1999), collaborating technology can help to resolve problems faced in GSE due to culture differences, geographic dispersion, loss of communication (both formal and informal), co-ordination breakdown, loss of teamness and time zone difference. However, KM can supplement Carmel solution by providing useful practices/tools like proper Competence Management (CM), Document Management (DM) and socialization and so on. ...
... Hence, the most advanced ICT tools like video conferencing can help in the reduction of four RU challenges (Fig. 2) and thus RU will be improved. Carmel (1999), telecommunication infrastructure is the need of every Fig. 3: KM practices/tools, elaborated from telecom infrastructure help in RU challenges in GSE team involved in GSE. Further, it acts like a foundation for a building. ...
Article
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The aim of the study is to identify useful Knowledge Management (KM) practices/tools in order to overcome Requirements Understanding (RU) challenges in Global Software Engineering (GSE). As Requirements Engineering (RE) is considered one of the most crucial, human intensive and challenging phase of software engineering. A paradigm shift from traditional co-located to offshore development has introduced additional complications in RE specifically in RU. Issues in GSE like involvement of people from diverse culture, different inter-personal communication and coordination skills leads to RU problems. For this, the need of proper practices/tools to overcome RU challenges in global setting is obvious from literature. So, this study focuses on two things. Firstly, in this study authors have mentioned major RU challenges in GSE which were identified in author's pervious study. Secondly, authors have identified useful Knowledge Management (KM) practices/tools that can aid globally dispersed software development teams in RU. For this purpose, industrial surveys were conducted in software companies involved in GSE. Thereby, useful KM practices such as Document Management, Competence Management and Knowledge sharing processes such as Socialization are identified to address RU issues faced in GSE. In addition, modern and advanced ICT tools such as video and audio conferencing, Forums, Intranets, have also been proposed for overcoming these challenges. Moreover, a detailed analysis is presented that how a specific KM practice/tool helps to cater a specific RU challenge.
... With team members from various organizations and countries, offshore-outsourced software development (OOSD) projects are much more challenging to manage than co-located ones (Kotlarsky & Oshri 2005). OOSD projects are reported to be more prone to failure than in-house or domestically outsourced software projects (Iacovou & Nakatsu 2008) because of offshore-specific risks such as language differences, time-zone differences, cultural differences, geographic distance, and coordination challenges (e.g., Carmel 1999; Sahay et al. 2003; Kotlarsky et al. 2006). These risks require additional governance to manage projects, especially to manage teams spread across different locations. ...
... The loss of teamness in dispersed teams affects the performance of global software projects (Carmel 1999). As most social science research has concerned co-located teams, there exists little hard research on what aspects of OOSD project teams lead to project failures (Carmel 1999). ...
... The loss of teamness in dispersed teams affects the performance of global software projects (Carmel 1999). As most social science research has concerned co-located teams, there exists little hard research on what aspects of OOSD project teams lead to project failures (Carmel 1999). The failure of team members to work together as a single project team has been an unexplored area in IT outsourcing. ...
Article
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Offshore outsourcing has been growing steadily since the 1990s, and this trend of sourcing services from low-cost countries such as India and China will continue in the near future. Despite the inherent challenges of offshore-outsourced software development (OOSD) projects, organizations in high-cost countries engage in OOSD projects because of compelling cost differences. We investigated the team-level functioning of projects, isolating the unique characteristics that lead to failures in offshore-outsourced software development (OOSD) projects. Using the grounded theory methodology, we analyzed OOSD teams, composed of client onshore, vendor onshore and vendor offshore sub-teams. 19 project managers were interviewed from both client and vendor sides based in Switzerland and India; these project managers provided details on one failed project each. Based on the extant team literature, we discuss seven team aspects that emerged from project cases leading to failure. We develop theoretical propositions relevant for OOSD projects that argue for the integration of multiple sub-teams involved in offshore projects. Further, we develop an exploratory model of OOSD team failure and identify four higher-level categories that influence team performance: team initiation, team interactions, team evaluation and team moderators.
... Global teams have been characterized as fraught with tensions [13, 14] and as being pulled apart by centrifugal forces such as geographical dispersion and cultural differences [2]. A framework of organizational tensions [42, 54] is useful in understanding the dynamics that both Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. ...
... One form of intercultural collaboration that is becoming more prevalent occurs in global software teams, in which internationally dispersed, culturally diverse team members actively collaborate on a common software project [2]. Due to high demand and a shortage of IT professionals and software development skills in the U.S., many high-tech companies are turning to off-shore outsourcing of software engineers from international markets such as India, Singapore, Ireland, and Brazil to attain these much-needed skills [3]. ...
... These work arrangements may involve a combination of remote and collocated intercultural collaboration, depending whether the work is performed offshore or on-shore. The goals of the off-shore outsourcing model are typically to gain access to needed software skills to enable the achievement of shorter development cycles and to take advantage of talented pools of developers at lower labor costs [2]. Data for this paper are based on an ethnography of a global software team in a large digital imaging corporation, which will be referred to by the pseudonym " PrintTech. ...
Data
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... The problems associated with MULSMULC_SD projects specifically may include the inability of the project manager to control ongoing activities due to distance and time-zone differences, etc. However, as SD efforts become more globalised, organisations involved in such ventures may moult to overcome emerging difficulties by restructuring their organisational structures [6], [18], [33]. A are moving toward a dynamic network structure, i.e. changing with the changing times (see, [29], [30]. ...
... -A suitable control mechanism that suits the organisation or the participants in the network of global SD projects be employed to facilitate the free flow of information. -Regular consultations and visits from the coordinating hub, i.e., HQ executives should be encouraged [6]. -The company-wide promotion of project management tools for scheduling and planning e.g. ...
... These authors identified the relative high cost of hardware, and low technical abilities among workers from such regions as inhibitors. The low quality of work amongst software developers in less developed countries of the world may be daunting when MULSMULC_SD projects directly involve entities from such regions [6] and [22]. The unavailability of reliable partners could inhibit operations of MULSMULC_SD in such parts of the world. ...
... Moreover, their support for distributed product development remains unclear. Two categories of IT tools assist international software development: generic collaborative technology and collaborative technology to support software engineering (CT-SE) (Carmel 1999). Generic collaborative technologies include the common tools (e.g., e-mail, audio-and videoconferencing , and groupware platforms). ...
... Software product companies, including start-ups, face intense competition in their domestic and foreign markets (Battin et al. 2001; Carmel 1999Cusumano and Yoffie 1998) and delivering product and accompanied services at the right time and in high quality (McGrath 2000). Substantial new product development investments are needed to overcome the market entry barriers and facilitate effective entry in the markets. ...
... Companies may encounter barriers due to language differences, small domestic markets, negative cultural attitudes toward risk taking, lack of venture capital firms, and unfavorable policies of governments toward software industry. Software development methodologies and activities have spread to newly industrialized, emerging, and developing nations (Carmel 1999). The rapid advancement and spread of IT and the liberalization of polices in these countries (e.g., India) have created opportunities for international software development. ...
Article
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This study investigates software companies' international software development approaches for world markets. It has been conducted by a) analyzing the resource-based theory and cooperation and network theories, b) reviewing the literature in the field of international software product development for world markets, c) performing a case analysis of a software start-up company's international software product development for world markets, and d) interviewing experts and practitioners in the field of international software product development. This study contributes both in terms of theory and practice. At the theoretical level, the study introduces a framework of international software product development for world markets. It can be used as a basis for further research. This study presents an empirical case analysis of international software product development of a start-up company, which is using innovative technologies and a holistic approach to develop software for wireless telecommunications industry. Their software product development spreads over two continents (i.e., USA and India) and targets world markets from the outset. At the practical level, the research results will help small software companies to avoid the problems and obtain benefits from international software product development. This study also suggests directions for future research.
... For Sarker and Sahay (2002): " GSD refers to software development geographically, remotely or globally distributed, with the goal of rationalize the process of product development " . There are many challenges in this research field that must be better studied and explored, such as different timezones, different cultures, different levels of experience and different technical backgrounds (Taweel and Brereton, 2006; Faraj and Sproull, 2000; Carmel, 1999). GSD has recently become an active research area (). ...
... GSD has recently become an active research area (). Follow-The-Sun (FTS) is a type of global software development that: aims the use of a 24h workday; focus on projects that search for velocity by the reduction of project life cycle timeto-market (Carmel et al., 2009Carmel et al., , 2010), and shares many challenges and issues of global software development, such as coordination, cultural factors and communication issues (Carmel, 1999; Carmel et al., 2010; Espinosa et al., 2003). Treinen and Miller-Frost (2006) presented timezone difference as an advantage for teams distribution in order to create a 24 h development environment. ...
... The results provided in previous section are hypothetical and they intend to illustrate the functionality and usefulness of the FTS model. Despite the fact that our results are based on simplified models from the literature (Patil et al., 2011; Raffo and Setamanit, 2005; Dafoulas et al., 2009; O'Leary and Cummings, 2007; Sooraj and Mohapatra, 2008; Treinen and Miller-Frost, 2006; Carmel, 1999; Czekster et al., 2011; Jalote and Jain, 2004 ), it is quite clear that the success of FTSbased projects relies on different factors and this research aims to help FTS projects decision making. Specifically, we are interested in how a stochastic modeling tool, the Stochastic Automata Networks formalism, can be used as a prediction tool to estimate the costs involved in choosing among FTS variants. ...
... The offshoring model of software development is increasingly being replaced by the traditional co-located model, which is commonly called on-site development (Edwards and Sridhar 2006). Offshoring involves globally distributed virtual teams, which collaborate across national boundaries (Carmel 1999). It has created a global network of software activities, which is somewhat similar to the Internet's network structure. ...
... Past research has greatly emphasized the potential benefits of globally distributed software development (Carmel 1999the-sun approach involves distributed teams working across different time zones. For example, one team is located in the US and it works on a project during the day (USA time). ...
Article
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Management of globally distributed software projects is one of the biggest challenges of the IT industry worldwide. Distributed software development involves teams working in different geographic locations and even in different countries. These distributed projects may involve teams from the same organization or have collaborative teams from different organizations that work together on a specific project. The dimension of distribution greatly enhances the complexity of managing these projects in globalized work environments. Therefore, there is a need to explore novel solutions to address this growing challenge. Research and practice have accentuated the need to embrace flexibility in management practices. This can potentially offer novel insights in unraveling the distributed work complexity. This paper is conceptual in nature and its objective is to propose a flexible management approach for globally distributed software projects. It also presents an in-depth review of literature and makes a case for embracing flexibility in management practices to address the challenges of distribution in today’s global work environments.
... Some of the researchers stated that geographical, socio-cultural and temporal distances are the three main factors for the failure of global software projects (Bass et al., 2009; Herbsleb, 2007; Herbsleb and Mockus, 2003; Herbsleb et al., 2005). Due to these three factors GSD faces three challenges i.e., communication, coordination and control (Carmel, 1999; Herbsleb et al., 2005; Korkala and Abrahamsson, 2007). In GSD, during software development process requirements continuously change from software requirements phase to maintenance phase. ...
... Geographical distance effect communication in GSD which hinder the creation of trust (Pyysiäinen, 2003 ). It is difficult to establish trust among newlyestablished dispersed teams due to communication issues (Carmel, 1999). When there is a lack of trust, there is a lack of willingness to communicate (Herbsleb et al., 1995) and the amount of information disclosed to remote colleagues may be limited. ...
Article
Full-text available
Presently, most of software development companies are trying to globalize their work throughout the world in order to get the various benefits. The phenomenon of this software globalization is called Global Software Development (GSD). However, GSD is not a simple job and the software companies face various challenges. In GSD Communication is a main issue and it became more complicated during Requirements Change Management (RCM). This research will result to explore different factors that can negatively affect communication during the RCM process by conducting a survey in GSD industry. A framework is proposed for the factors effecting communication and total nine hypotheses are developed. A quantitative research method has been used to collect and analyse the data. The results show that total seven out of nine hypotheses are supported and two hypotheses are rejected.
... Some of the researchers stated that geographical, socio-cultural and temporal distances are the three main factors for the failure of global software projects (Bass et al., 2009; Herbsleb, 2007; Herbsleb and Mockus, 2003; Herbsleb et al., 2005). Due to these three factors GSD faces three challenges i.e. communication, coordination and control (Carmel, 1999; Herbsleb et al., 2005; Korkala and Abrahamsson, 2007). In GSD, during software development process requirements continuously change from software requirements phase to maintenance phase. ...
... Geographical distance effect communication in GSD which hinder the creation of trust (Pyysiäinen, 2003 ). It is difficult to establish trust among newlyestablished dispersed teams due to communication issues (Carmel, 1999). When there is a lack of trust, there is a lack of willingness to communicate (Herbsleb et al., 1995) and the amount of information disclosed to remote colleagues may be limited. ...
Article
Full-text available
Presently, most of software development companies are trying to globalize their work throughout the world in order to get the various benefits. The phenomenon of this software globalization is called Global Software Development (GSD). However, GSD is not a simple job and the software companies face various challenges. In GSD Communication is a main issue and it became more complicated during Requirements Change Management (RCM). This research will result to explore different factors that can negatively affect communication during the RCM process by conducting a survey in GSD industry. A framework is proposed for the factors effecting communication and total nine hypotheses are developed. A quantitative research method has been used to collect and analyse the data. The results show that total seven out of nine hypotheses are supported and two hypotheses are rejected.
... As economies and firm competitive advantage are increasingly based on knowledge rather than materials, firms are moving away from traditional modes of organization in order to meet new demands for competitiveness, flexibility, speed, and novelty (Child and McGrath, 2001; Kellogg, Orlikowski, and Yates, 2006; Volberda, 1996). As part of this broader paradigm shift, an increasing number of firms have outsourced and offshored many of their in-house activities – located them to a wholly owned company or independent service provider in another country – both in order to save costs and, increasingly, to acquire new skills and capabilities not available in-house (e.g., Carmel, 1999; Lewin and Peeters, 2006 ). Its potential benefits notwithstanding, such disaggregation of the value chain adds an additional layer of management complexity because of the need to manage and coordinate a complex web of knowledge flows and interdependent tasks being performed by distributed teams, marked by differences in geography, skills, norms, language, culture, and interests. ...
... By articulating the critical part played by organizational politics in influencing knowledge flows across distributed (onshore and offshore) groups, we aspire to enrich the literature on managing globally distributed teams that are engaged in high-value activities (Carmel, 1999; Oshri et al., 2008; Sidhu et al., 2010). More specifically, we argue how the antecedents and consequences of politics might differ in the context of different globally distributed teams; and on how spatial, temporal, and cultural separation of onshore and offshore personnel has the potential to spawn politics and influence knowledge flows because of coalitions forming round localized goals. ...
... Monasor et al. [21] did not report (nor have we have found) any empirical data available for comparing coordination efforts between same-site and multisite GSD courses except for [23], but there is ample evidence of increased coordination needs for real multisite GSD efforts to justify increased coordination needs for multisite GSD courses as well [3, 10]. Interestingly, just recently, Paasivaara et al. [23] reported on learning global agile SE using same-site and cross-site student teams. ...
Conference Paper
Over the past decade, major advancements in software development have occurred in the global context. Global software development (GSD) is an effective strategy, and many higher educational institutions have been offering GSD courses. These courses are usually organized together with another institution situated in a different location. However, conducting such a course with more than one institution is not so economical since it involves greater collaboration among various institutions than in the case of a general onsite course. In this paper, we present an onsite simulation that deals with the specifics in the field of GSD training and teaching. We analyzed the students' learning reflections with a phenomenographic approach to validate the relevance of the design science construct of the course model containing an onsite simulation. Based on the analyzed data, it is possible to organize a GSD course on a single location with the aid of role-play simulation. The presented course model can help an institution prepare its students to solve most of the common problems faced in industrial GSD settings.
... Globally distributed projects involve two or more teams working together from diVerent geographical locations to accomplish common project goals. In addition to geographical dispersion, globally distributed teams face time-zone and cultural diVerences that may include diVerent languages, national traditions, values and norms of behaviour (Carmel, 1999) that may greatly reduce the extent of socialization between remote counterparts. Socialization in globally distributed teams may take place through two key mechanisms. ...
Article
This article explores the process through which social ties in globally dispersed software development teams are created and renewed. The paper argues that because face-to-face (F2F) meetings and ICT are limited in providing support for the build-up and renewal of social ties in long, complex globally distributed projects, other activities should be introduced before and after F2F meetings. Based on case studies carried out at SAP and LeCroy, and through the examination of activities introduced in these teams before and after F2F meetings, the paper concludes that globally distributed teams (GDTs) should be "re-socialized" to ensure that interpersonal ties do not fade away and collaborative work is not hampered. The article provides an array of activities and communications tools at the individual, group and organizational level for the introduction, build-up and renewal stages of social ties. It concludes by offering managers practical implications and making suggestions for future research.
... There is some support for the negative effects of production outsourcing on operational performance in both the field-based and empirical research. Dabhilkar and found a direct negative effect of outsourcing on quality for Swedish manufacturing firms. Carmel (1999) suggests that teamwork also suffers when there is outsourcing, and as teamwork is a wellrecognized component of operational performance (Dean & Bower, 1994; Thomas & Velthouse, 1990), it follows that operational performance may suffer as outsourcing increases. Additionally, outsourcing tends to decrease employee morale, commitment, moti ...
Research
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Firms undertake a variety of supply chain initiatives to improve their performance. Of particular interest to many practitioners and academics alike are the mixed outcomes that result from implementation of what is commonly viewed as a best practice. In this research, we consider one especially popular practice, the outsourcing of production. We investigate the effects of production outsourcing on the firm×s overall operational performance, and its components (manufacturing cycle time, order lead-times, delivery, operating equipment effectiveness), and customer loyalty by analyzing secondary data across a wide variety of industries using data from a survey of manufacturing plant managers. We draw on resource based view of the firm along with the supply chain and quality management literature to aid in predicting the operational performance to be expected when outsourcing production. Our analysis found that production outsourcing has deleterious effects on operational performance, with significant reductions in operating equipment effectiveness and on-time delivery. Our research also found that production outsourcing has a negative influence on customer loyalty when mediated through operational performance. This research also makes methodological contributions in the development of robust measures of operational performance and related variables.
... Along with the different benefits GSD also faces different challenges. Some of the researchers stated that 3 Cs-Coordination, Communication and Control are the three main factors for the failure of global software projects (Bass et al., 2009; Herbsleb, 2007; Herbsleb and Mockus, 2003; Herbsleb et al., 2005) .Due to these three factors GSD has become risky and more challenging (Carmel, 1999; Korkala and Abrahamsson, 2007). In GSD requirements continuously change during the software development life cycle. ...
Article
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Currently, software systems are becoming an essential part of business in the world. The majority of the software production companies are adopting Global Software Development (GSD) and it is incessantly getting faster. Most of the software development organisations are trying to globalize their study worldwide in order to get the different benefits. However, GSD is not a simple task and the organizations face various challenges. But communication is a major issue and it becomes more complicated during the Requirements Change Management (RCM) in the context of GSD. This research will explore communication risks, their causes, negative effects and those mitigation practices which can be used to allay communication risks during the RCM process. A Systematic Literature Review (SLR) protocol has been developed and the implementation of the protocol is in process. The SLR protocol provides in depth and more comprehensive results than common literature review.
... Global Software Development (GSD) is gaining the more attraction of the software industry throughout the world. During the 1990s, the differences in development cost, the limited pool of work force, the necessity to get closer to customer and round the clock development, force the organizations to outsource their projects [3]. Due to the high rate of distributed projects, it becomes important to understand the nature of such type of software development [4] [5]. ...
Article
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In this research, an improved framework for requirement change management in global software development (RCM_GSD) has been presented. The objective is to manage the change in requirement specifically in global software development in an appropriate manner. The proposed frame-work RCM_GSD follows the required processes of RCM and reduces the concerns of GSD. Systematic Literature Review (SLR) was conducted for exploration of relevant research. During literature study, it is analyzed that the existing techniques of change management were not suitable for global software development (GSD). The change in requirements becomes more complicated in distributed environment due to the lack of communication and collaboration among globally dispersed stakeholders. The proposed model is compared with other models proposed in recent literature and analysis is made between them; feedback was obtained from the domain experts as well. The feedback and comparison results show that the proposed model provides an appropriate solution for requirement change management in GSD.
... Indeed, a growing number of studies have reported problems regarding collaboration in distributed work, such as coordination breakdowns, lack of understanding of a counterpart's context (Cramton, 2001) and different language competencies across remote sites. Other studies have argued that globally distributed work may exacerbate the chance of misunderstandings , lack of trust (Jarvenpaa and Leidner, 1999 ), asymmetry in distribution of information among sites (Carmel, 1999), difficulty in collaborating due to different skills and training, and mismatches in information technology (IT) infrastructure. By and large, the practices proposed in the literature have focused on two possible routes to ensure effective and efficient collaboration and coordination between remote sites. ...
Chapter
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The European Union (EU)-funded Management of Emerging Technologies for Economic Impact (ManETEI) – Marie Curie Initial Training Network, brought together a diverse group of leading European business schools, research institutes and industrial partners to investigate the challenges associated with the management of emerging technologies for economic and social impact. Individual research projects progressed broadly in two directions. The first group of researchers embraced the notion that technological and organizational innovation unfolds in complex settings where a myriad of actors (companies, governments, universities and wider public) collaborate and interact in order to translate technological advances into solutions with impact of economic progress and social well-being. They followed the already recognized notion that innovation frequently depends on interplay and networking of many organizations and communities across different industries. Such ecosystems of interdependent organizations and scientific and technological communities are characterized by the wide dispersion of adequate knowledge that needs to be integrated and coordinated through collaboration and networking. This group could be further divided into researchers who investigated strategic challenges for policy makers in shaping technology development and those who centred their research on exploring collaborative and networking practices in technological and regional innovation networks. The second group zoomed in and investigated how individual companies organize their innovation processes and identified what constitutes organizational capabilities that help organizations to capture value from emergent technologies. This group consists of researchers who investigated the Dimitris G. Assimakopoulos, Ilan Oshri and Krsto Pandza-9781782547877 Downloaded from Elgar Online at 04/14/2015 08:48:52AM via free access 2 Managing emerging technologies for socioeconomic impact foundations of organizational capabilities for technological innovation and those who explored how emerging technologies (mostly information and communication technology-enabled) help companies to strengthen their innovation capabilities. The book is organized in four parts. Each part includes four chapters. Part I explores foundations of organizational capabilities for technological innovation. Part II explores collaboration and networking for shaping the emergence and progression of technologies. This is followed by Part III, addressing strategic challenges for policy makers that influence the sustainable and responsible development of technology. Part IV is less concerned with the technology dynamics; it investigates how emerging technology supports organizational capabilities and how novel technologies affect work and communication practices. In the rest of this introductory chapter we discuss, in four sections: the changing conceptions of managing innovation and emerging technologies ; the role of collaboration networks and communities in the process of emergence of emerging technologies; and then in the last two sections we discuss how emerging technologies relate to broader discussions on open innovation and changing work practices in organizations, with a particular reference to ICT innovations.
... Since the primary force driving offshore sourcing appears to be cost savings (Lacity et al., 2010) and the open source model is associated with significant cost savings (Wheeler, 2004), it is natural that companies would seek to exploit the open source development model. However, an additional highlypraised advantage of the open source model is its potential for increased innovation through access to a large skilled developer pool with both broad and deep expertise that offer the capacity to view problems in new ways (Carmel, 1999; 2006; Herbsleb and Grinter, 1999; Carmel and Agarwal, 2001; Ebert and De Neve, 2001; Carmel and Tjia, 2005; Ó Conchúir et al., 2009; Morgan and Finnegan, 2010; Eseryel, 2014 ). Thus, given the success of the open source model and its potential for gamechanging cost savings and innovation, it is not surprising that open source would inspire new forms of sourcing. ...
Conference Paper
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Software outsourcing has been the subject of much research in the past 25 years, largely because of potential cost savings envisaged through lower labour costs, ‘follow-the-sun’ development, access to skilled developers, and proximity to new markets. In recent years, the success of the open source phenomenon has inspired a number of new forms of sourcing that combine the potential of global sourcing with the elusive and much sought-after possibility of increased innovation. Three of these new forms of sourcing are opensourcing, innersourcing and crowdsourcing. Based on a comparative analysis of a number of case studies of these forms of sourcing, we illustrate how they differ in both significant and subtle ways from outsourcing. We conclude that these emerging sourcing approaches call for conceptual development and refocusing. Specifically, to understand software sourcing in the age of open, the important concept is no longer ‘shoring,’ but rather five identified imperatives (governance sharedness, unknownness, intrinsicness, innovativeness and co-opetitiveness) and their implications for the development situation at hand.
... (Imsland, Sahay, & Wartiainen, 2003) that trust is a complex phenomenon when looking at the role of trust in global software outsourcing. Geographical distance effect communication in GSD which hinder the creation of trust (Pyysiäinen, 2003). It is difficult to establish trust among newly established dispersed teams due to communication issues (E. Carmel, 1999). When there is a lack of trust, there is a lack of willingness to communicate (J.D. Herbsleb et al., 1995) and the amount of information disclosed to remote colleagues may be limited. So, based on above discussion we could propose following hypothesis. H3. Lack of trust has positive relationship with Communication risks/issues. ...
Article
Full-text available
Presently, software is an important module of business in the world. Most of software organizations are distributing their work all over the world in order to develop software through collaboration via electronic network and it is continually getting fast. Software development companies are trying to globalize their work throughout the world in order to get the various benefits. The phenomenon of this software globalization is called Global Software Development (GSD).However, globalization of software development is not a simple job and the software companies face numerous challenges. In GSD Communication is a main issue and it became more complicated during Requirements Change Management (RCM) process .This paper presents the various factors which causes different communication risks in GSD during RCM process. A proposed framework is developed that consolidates relevant factors, which have been categorized into geographical, socio-cultural and temporal distances. A quantitative research method has been used to collect data from GSD organizations.
... Virtuality may also moderate or reverse the direction of effects for skill differentiation as suggested by Staples and Zhao (2006). Or virtuality may exacerbate the negative effects of skill differentiation, authority differentiation, and temporal instability as suggested by many (Carmel, 1999; Fisher & Fisher, 2001; Gibson & Cohen, 2003; Hinds & Kiesler, 2002; Lipnack & Stamps, 2000; Nemiro, Beyerlein, Bradley, & Beyerlein, 2008). It is unlikely that we will understand the complex relationships between the four types of contextual conditions and their impact on and interaction with team processes, emergent states, and outcomes, unless these conditions are explored consistently when conducting team research. ...
Article
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We propose an extension of the Hollenbeck, Beersma, and Schouten team context model to include a fourth dimension: virtuality—the distance between team members. Based on an analysis of 29 unique approaches to conceptualizing virtuality and a critical comparison of these approaches with the Hollenbeck et al. framework, we recommend that virtuality be measured, along with skill differentiation, authority differentiation, and temporal stability when conducting team research. We conclude that the addition of this redefined construct, virtuality, is warranted based on the following: (a) its uniqueness versus the other dimensions, (b) its impact on team outcomes, and (c) the moderating or interaction effects between virtuality and the other contextual dimensions.
... achieving greater efficiency through around-the-clock work across time zones, and lowering costs of access to local markets and customers without the need to travel (Carmel, 1999; Gluesing & Gibson, 2004). In addition, the exchange of diverse viewpoints and perspectives among global team members offers benefits not just to individuals but to team and organizational performance in terms of higher quality outcomes and solutions (Cummings, 2004; Stahl, Makela, Zander, & Maznevski, 2010) . ...
... Finally, an important aspect of training multinational collaboration using IM is making individuals aware of cultural differences. Research has outlined several dimensions where individuals from differing cultures may encounter problems cooperating on tasks, to include [18]: ♦ Revering hierarchy. How individuals interact with superiors depends on how great they envision the gap between themselves and others of different managerial levels. ...
... Based on our experiences, we support the view that it is important to trust the writer's intentions in e-mail messages and not to read other ideas or hidden meanings into them. For some cultures sustaining, let alone building, trusting relationships in a detached, electronic environment is unimaginable unless solid personal relationships have been formed earlier (Camel, 1999). ...
Chapter
Outsourcing of the software development activity has been on the increase in recent years according to both US and European reports. However, in many cases outsourcing of software development, often referred to as global software engineering, has not delivered on its promise (e.g. Nakatsu and Iacovou 2009; Tiwana and Keil 2009; Ó Conchúir et al. 2009). The success of the open source software movement (Feller et al. 2005), which seems to overcome many of the challenges associated with global software engineering, has been an inspiration for a number of specific forms of software sourcing, including opensourcing (Ågerfalk and Fitzgerald 2008), innersourcing (Stol and Fitzgerald 2015) and crowdsourcing (Stol and Fitzgerald 2014a). By integrating the findings from these earlier studies, this book explores and compares these forms of open source-inspired sourcing. These novel approaches to software sourcing differ from traditional outsourcing in significant ways and little is known about how they can work in practice. Therefore, our goal is to provide research-based advice to managers and developers facing software sourcing decisions.
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In this chapter we investigate the crowdsourcing phenomenon through a case study of a multinational company who embarked on a significant crowdsourcing software development initiative. Most studies aim to explain crowdsourcing by describing successful cases (e.g., Brabham 2008); as a result, there has been little attention to the challenges that may arise. Further research is therefore needed to better understand the limits of crowdsourcing software development. This chapter presents an in-depth industry case study of crowdsourcing software development at a multinational corporation. The goal is to shed light on the key issues in crowdsourcing that are relevant to software development. The study reveals a number of challenges that the case study organization encountered. In previous work (Stol and Fitzgerald 2014a, b), we drew on the crowdsourcing literature to synthesize a set of six cues which have particular relevance in a crowdsourcing software development context:
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Coordination, defined as the achievement of concerted action (Goodhue and Thompson, 1995), underpins the development and delivery of products and services, and continues to attract attention in current research (Quinn and Dutton, 2005; Gittell and Weiss, 2004; Bechky, 2003). Current coordination theory is commonly built on an information processing perspective (Galbraith, 1973). According to this approach, differentiation of work translates into task dependencies which are resolved through coordination mechanisms (Crowston, 1997). Mechanisms bring varying information processing capacity to organizations (Mintzberg, 1979). Examples include standards (low information capacity) and mutual adjustment (high information capacity). Matching information processing needs and capacity is required for effective coordination (van de Ven et al., 1976). While this information-based perspective on coordination has been dominant and useful, its assumptions combined with recent developments in organization theory have made a revision necessary.
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The last decade has witnessed a sharp increase in offshore outsourcing activities (Hirschheim et al., 2005), which Robinson and Kalakota (2004: 4) define as “the delegation or subcontracting of administrative, engineering, research, development, or technical support processes to a third-party vendor based in a low-cost location”. Although such activities may entail numerous benefits, compared to conventional outsourcing, offshoring generally faces organizations with additional complications (Carmel and Tjia, 2005; King et al., 2004).
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Global distribution of software development has become widespread over the last 15 years (Herbsleb and Moitra, 2001). Moreover, there are a number of economic and technical drivers that are likely to accelerate further the growth of distributed software development. For one, to access a larger pool of expertise, often in low-cost geographical locations, many companies are switching to globally distributed software development or offshore outsourcing of software products and services. On the technological side, continuing innovations in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) improve the possibilities to cooperate in a distributed mode.
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Globally distributed collaboration and virtual teams are becoming increasingly common in areas such as aerospace (Malhotra et al., 2001) and software development (Carmel, 1999). There are a number of economic and technical trends that accelerate the growth of globally distributed projects and the creation of distributed or virtual teams. For economic and financial considerations, many companies are switching to offshore outsourcing of products and services. For instance, in the software and electronics industries offshore outsourcing of development (for software) and manufacturing (for electronics) is very common. Outsourcing of services such as call centers to English-speaking developing countries is becoming increasingly popular. On the technological side, ongoing innovations in information and communication technologies make it possible to cooperate in a distributed mode.
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Knowledge transfer has become a key issue for globally distributed work, such as global software development projects (e.g. Kotlarsky and Oshri, 2005), global business process outsourcing (e.g. Feeny et al., 2005), and infrastructure management (e.g. Beulen et al., 2005). In these novel organizational forms, success depends on the rapid transfer of business and technological knowledge from and to offshore facilities. This transfer of knowledge may improve knowledge integration across various sites and products, and may contribute to successfully coordinating complex projects (Grant, 1996).
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Coordination can be defined as the process of achieving concerted action (Thompson, 1967) in situations of task dependence (Crowston, 1997). Electronic coordination (further referred to as e-coordination) refers to the situations when a coordination process relies on electronic media and Information Technology (IT). Electronic media and IT play an indispensable role in advanced societies as (partial) substitutes for human coordination practices and thereby they enable the global knowledge-based workplace (Majchrzak et al., 2000; Argyres, 1999; Ciborra et al., 1996b). Knowledge workers depend on advanced technologies for coordinating work processes with colleagues, clients, and vendors. Advanced technologies for collaboration (e.g. web-based project management software and Groupware), coordination (e.g. CATIA product development software), simulation, and visualization (collaborative CAD/CAM software products) reinforce multiple categories of knowledge processes (see Chapter 4). However, these new technologies — designed and used for coordination processes — usually result in a complex mixture of positive and negative impacts on individual lives, organizations, and society (Zuboff, 1988).
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Recent years have witnessed the globalization of many industries. Consequently, globally distributed collaborations and virtual teams have become increasingly common in many areas, for example in new product development (Malhotra et al., 2001) and in Information Systems (IS) development (Sarker and Sahay, 2004; Herbsleb and Mockus, 2003; Carmel and Agarwal, 2002).
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Recent years have witnessed the globalization of many industries. Consequently, globally distributed collaborations and virtual teams have become increasingly common in many areas, but in particular in software development (e.g., Kotlarsky and Oshri, 2005; Krishna, Sahay, and Walsham, 2004; Herbsleb and Mockus, 2003; Battin, Crocker, and Kreidler, 2001; Carmel, 1999). Ongoing innovations in Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have made it possible to cooperate in a distributed mode. From originally quite small projects, enabled by ICTs, companies now embark on major complex software development projects across multiple locations.
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Intensified competition and advances in telecommunications, accompanied with increasing maturity of offshore IT vendors (Carmel and Agarwal 2002; Gartner and Marriot 2003; Hirschheim, et al. 2005), have resulted in the proliferation of Information System Development (ISD) outsourcing. Perceived cost advantages, flexibility, and the availability of a competitive labor pool have compelled various organizations to outsource work to “offshore” countries (Carmel and Agarwal 2002; Robinson and Kalakota 2004). Although traditional ISD outsourcing projects already face challenges related to the notorious complexity of systems development (Brooks 1987; Keil and Mann 2000), to users’ inability to accurately specify requirements (Boland, 1978), and to developers’ inability to elicit requirements from users (Davis 1982; Salaway 1987), offshoring further exacerbates these problems. The distinct backgrounds, experiences, and cultures of participants in offshore relationships (Carmel 1999; Carmel and Tjia 2005) give rise to differences in perceptions, assumptions, and understandings among stakeholders, which tend to be particularly significant during requirements development (Sommerville and Sawyer 1997; Damian and Zowghi 2003). For such projects to become successful, it is imperative that multiple stakeholders develop sufficiently similar understandings of requirements so that the software that is eventually developed by offshore vendor teams is valued by clients and on-site team members.
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In this chapter we address the concept of agility in a wider context. One topic on which we focus is globalization in terms of distributed teamsdistributed teams ; the second idea is the application of the agile approach for the managementmanagement of non-software projectsnon-software projects project . Agile software development has evolved significantly during the last decade. In parallel to this evolution, globalization in software development has also emerged, and software is developed in many cases by teams which are spread across geographical areas, cultures, and nationalities. This reality, called global software development, has advantages as well as disadvantages. The most obvious advantage is the business aspect of cost reduction; the most problematic issues are communication and team synchronization. In this chapter we briefly describe the notion of global software development and explain how some agile practices help cope with the challenges involved. Specifically, we will see that the agile approach encourages a transparent global software development process. thus increasing information flow and project visibility and assistings in solving communication and synchronization problems. Further, the tightness of agile processes simplifies software project management. We also examine in this chapter the notion of agility beyond the software world and discover its usefulness in such projects
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Increased competitive pressures and a volatile business environment are forcing “high-tech” companies to adopt new working practices and organisational structures. Inter-organisational collaboration is increasingly becoming the accepted way to respond to rapidly changing market opportunities. These collaborations allow companies to quickly acquire new skills and resources required to enable it to exploit market opportunities. The alliance between Netscape, Sun Microsystems and Oracle to challenge the market dominance of Microsoft is an example of this new form of inter-organisational collaboration. In this case, none of the companies individually had the resources, skills and time to develop products that could effectively challenge the market dominance of Microsoft. However by collaborating, the companies had the resources, skills and time to develop new competitive products.
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Ist „Team“ nicht eine Metapher für schwierig, „virtuell“ nicht überhaupt suspekt und „international“ eine utopische Überforderung fir das Management? „The odds are against it“ — die Kombination aller drei Kategorien zu internationalen virtuellen Teams müsste eigentlich von vornherein eine Unmöglichkeit darstellen! Warum dann trotzdem „internationale virtuelle Teams“ (IVTs)? Offenbar erwartet die zeitgemäße Unternehmensführung innovative Arbeitsformen, die in dem indeterminierbaren globalen Umfeld bestehen können (vgl. Hedberg et al. 1997; Roberts, Kossek, Ozeki 1998; Govindarajan, Gupta 2001). Doch obwohl sich in IVTs die Einwände, die es hinsichtlich Teamarbeit, Virtualität und Internationalität sowieso bereits gibt, potenzieren, kann es nicht die betriebswirtschaftlich angemessene Lösung sein, prinzipiell auf IVTs zu verzichten: Zu vielversprechend sind die möglicherweise zu erreichenden Nutzenwirkungen! Sie liegen in der Möglichkeit, voneinander entfernte Menschen zusammen arbeiten zu lassen, die dies sonst nicht täten deren Kernkompetenzen zum Erreichen zuvor unerreichbarer Möglichkeiten zu koppeln und deren kulturelle Unterschiedlichkeit als zusätzliches Kreativitätspotenzial zu begreifen.
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Western countries’ information technology and software intensive firms are increasingly producing software and IT services in developing countries. Regardless of the swift advancement in offshore outsourcing, there are arrays of issues that must be investigated in order for companies to benefit from the offshore outsourcing. Numerous significant benefits can be accomplished through the successful management of offshore outsourcing. Critical issues are the challenges that can happen throughout the lifecycle of offshore outsourcing IT service projects. This research will investigate these critical issues throughout the whole lifecycle of executed offshore outsourcing projects in the IT service industry from the client managerial perspective.
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Globalization has led to the expansion of information technology and distributed software development. Most of the software development companies face various challenges in distributing the project. As a consequence of the dispersed nature of global software development projects, communication, coordination, and control become more difficult which adversely influence effort estimation of the software development. The major ingredients that impact software development productivity of globally distributed projects are project delivery rate, team size and communication complexity. The paper analyses the factors affecting the productivity of the globally distributed projects. The project distribution can be effectively done depending on the estimated productivity for the different sites. The project distribution to the multiple sites can be done in the order of decreasing productivity factor.
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HCI design incorporates usability engineering. However, “usability” is often misunderstood as just “ease-of-use” or “user friendliness”. Whereas it should be viewed as software quality with respect to the context of use, which is a fundamental element in usability studies (cf. [1] and [2]). However, there are cases where usability professionals and software engineers do not share the same culture and the same perceptive (cf. [3]). Therefore, it becomes mandatory to improve the collaboration between HCI (usability) engineering and software engineering. This paper looks into the fallacies of product development process in practice and draws lessons learned.
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The customer driven innovation systems, market pressures, accelerating technologies, limited resources, technical complexities and need for expertise have driven organization beyond boundaries. Globally distributed work force is one of the competitive strategies of any leading organization and synergy among team members is vital to achieve excellence. This paper extends the line of research to identify performance and its role of self-presentation among virtual teams to strengthen trust, task interdependence, task oriented communication and interpersonal relationships. Identifying the role of “Digital Identity in self presentation” and understanding team process from “Psycho-Social dimension” by emphasizing importance on the form of social interaction that takes place, rather than the content or structure itself presents a new perspective. The proposed model emphasizes trade-off between identity consolidation and mobilization of virtual teams. We believe that the proposed framework will increase our understanding the role of individual behavior and team performance in globally distributed virtual teams.
Conference Paper
Computer Supported Cooperation has developed into a quite mature technology over time. Key factors such as awareness and synchronization between cooperating partners and work bench are widely solved. For application in real live, some tools are available, some in use, but the general breakthrough did not happen. Well known “Globalization” is a field where CSCW and similar tools can bring major contribution – but also new challenges have to be faced as user groups, or teams, will encounter more and more people from different nationalities and cultural background. Therefore, adaptation is needed beyond social behavior where culture becomes a key factor and resulting flexibility of CSCW-tools becomes a must. As a respond to this demand, Tailor-SMaDe (Tailorable Software Modeling and Design) has been developed as web-based synchronous groupware tool that supports globally distributed work. The tool provides high flexibility by allowing users to tailor their collaboration environment. It is implemented as a web-based application, which adds to the advantage that users need only to use their web-browsers to access the application. Tailor-SMaDe is built modularly so as to ease future extension of the groupware. Tailor-SMaDe is intended to be equipped with a culturally-aware expert system that suggests the most optimal configuration of a collaboration environment.
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Collective intelligence (CI) is a property of groups that emerges from the coordination and collaboration of members and predicts group performance on a wide range of tasks. Previous studies of CI have been conducted with lab-based groups in the USA. We introduce a new standardized online battery to measure CI and demonstrate consistent emergence of a CI factor across three different studies despite broad differences in (a) communication media (face-to-face vs online), (b) group contexts (short-term ad hoc groups vs long-term groups) and (c) cultural settings (US, Germany, and Japan). In two of the studies, we also show that CI is correlated with a group's performance on more complex tasks. Consequently, the CI metric provides a generalizable performance measure for groups that is robust to broad changes in media, context, and culture, making it useful for testing the effects of general-purpose collaboration technologies intended to improve group performance.
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Globalisation, characterised by the worldwide merging, acquiring and collaborating activities, enforces and enables enterprises to distribute their processes. ‘24hr Follow the Sun Design’ is an example of a purposeful distribution across the borders of time, companies and continents. Through a case study the BMW Group wanted to investigate the potential of ‘24hr Follow the Sun Design’ to reduce costs and time as well as to improve quality. The basis for planning and realisation of the project is the Distribution Methodology - a holistic approach for identifying typical problems as well as developing and implementing solution activities. The present paper gives a basic introduction to the Distribution Methodology by describing its main elements and its application in the ‘24hr Follow the Sun Design Project’. The paper also presents the structure of the entire ‘24hr Follow the Sun Design Project’ as well as the concept for the realisation of the project. The initial results of the project are also presented.
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This chapter is dedicated to companies engaged in collaborative software projects with staff distributed across several locations. The chapter is organized around ten problem areas. Each problem area starts with a common misconception, followed by a discussion of complexities associated with distributed development as opposed to co-located development, practices known for addressing these complexities, and a short list of implications for practice. The aim is to illuminate the key complexities of managing distributed development projects. While project managers in co-located projects are equipped with tools, practices, and methods, these are often of little help when dealing with the challenges of distributed environment. Hence, inexperienced managers often fail to foresee and proactively address the common problems. The readers will learn to distinguish different types of distributed projects (including onshoring, offshoring, outsourcing, and insourcing, to name a few) and challenges, both context dependent and common for distributed projects. © 2014 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg. All rights are reserved.
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A theoretical model of information technology (IT) project management was formulated based on the results of previous studies incorporating transactional and transformational leadership styles, team diversity, and team culture as determinants of team processes and project outcomes. The study addresses the lack of previous studies of IT projects and is concerned with infrastructure and software projects conducted in cross-functional environments with co-located teams in the context of Thailand. The model was tested and developed to a final model using data collected from a sample of 219 professionals with experience in IT projects in Thailand. The results confirmed several reported effects of leadership styles, team diversity, and culture on team cooperation, cohesion, and conflict and their subsequent effects on performance and psychosocial project outcomes. The findings highlighted results not commonly reported in previous studies of IT project management concerning the role of dominant cultural characteristics of Thai society at the level project teams as well as important direct effects of leadership styles and aspects of team diversity on performance and psychosocial outcomes. Based on the findings practical recommendations for improving IT project outcomes are presented.
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Globally distributed software development projects are on the rise. However, 69% of cross-regional projects fail completely or partially, because of lack of cross-cultural understanding. This paper presents a qualitative study of the impact of communication on Global Software Development (GSD) within firms due to cultural differences. In particular, we provide a model of problems and solutions related to communication of German/Chinese and American/ Chinese collaborations in GSD. The model was derived using grounded theory to study six globally distributed software development projects. The results may not only help companies understand cultural problems, but also help them overcome these problems. To this end, we discuss the solutions adopted by the multinational software companies that we studied.
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Contracting Global Virtual Teams as part of global IT outsourcing is currently en vogue. As might be expected when virtual team members are from different countries, cultural factors play an important role in the success of outsourcing. However, there have been very few studies that assess the effect of culture on IT outsourcing and virtual teams. This conceptual paper addresses this oversight by looking at the effect of cultural differences on IT outsourcing and virtual teams' performance. The applicable literature on outsourcing, virtual teams and culture is analyzed and a framework of offshore outsourcing success is developed. This framework includes the concept of psychic distance to better understand the phenomenon of virtual teams and outsourcing success. Adding this as a key research component provides a more realistic way of researching global virtual teams. Future directions for research based on the developed framework are also provided. By assessing the cultural differences of virtual teams in IT outsourcing, our research framework will help academics pursue this growing business phenomenon.
Conference Paper
Distributed software development imposes challenges because of geographical, temporal and the cultural differences in which distributed teams live in. The advances in telecommunication, media, and technology have allowed companies to develop ways to simulate physical proximity in a real-time fashion. For instance, the sharing of a real-size screen can be used to promote the feeling that people on the other side of the screen are physically co-located with those in a certain site. The adoption of tools, methods, and technologies that simulate physical proximity aims to minimize the well-known challenges faced by distributed teams. The goal of this paper is to present the experience of a multinational Brazilian company in adopting technology to simulated co-location to support their software development processes. The benefits of such simulation, such as improved communication, and challenged faced, such as infrastructure problems, are also described.
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In the past decade, there was a notably significant raise in the adoption of the Distributed Software Development approach. This so-called approach has brought a lot of competitive advantages, as well as new challenges, such as communication and sharing of information among distributed teams. In this scenario, the use of the ontology concept simplifies and normalizes the teams' understanding of shared information and eases the communication between them. This research's purpose is to make a systematic literature review in order to identify which tools, models, techniques and satisfactory practices that utilize ontology as an aid to DSD.
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