An insight into the interplay between culture, conflict and distance in globally distributed requirements negotiations

© 2003 IEEE. There is an increasing interest in research addressing issues of global software development. Specifying software requirements is a communication-intensive collaborative activity that is increasingly performed across cultural, language and time zone boundaries. While inadequate communication significantly impacts the bridging of geographical distance between stakeholders, the cultural differences cannot be considered less significant. Findings from two global software development organizations enables us to present a model of impact of distance and the affected requirements activities due to problems of cultural diversity, inadequate communication, knowledge management and time differences. This evidence provides an important insight into the interplay between culture and conflict as well as the impact of distance on the ability to reconcile different viewpoints with regards to requirements and requirements processes

The Role of Cultural Differences and Cultural Intelligence in Controlling IS Offshoring Projects: A Theoretical Model

Cultural differences between outsourcers and vendor firms in offshore locations pose unique management challenges. One ofthese challenges is to find a control strategy that fits the cultural setting. However, most of the previous research has analyzedcultural and control issues separately from one another. The objective of this paper is to bring together these two distinctresearch streams. The result is a conceptual model describing the relationships between cultural differences and the choice ofdifferent control modes in IS offshoring projects. Propositions are derived from organizational control and national culturetheory. In particular, we introduce the concept of cultural intelligence as moderating the relationship between culturaldifferences and the choice of control. The resulting conceptual model developed in this paper makes important theoreticalcontributions to IS offshoring and serves as a basis for future empirical research

Use of social media by academic librarians in Iraq

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to identify the nature and extent of the “information gap” in Iraq and explore perspectives on international academic library collaboration using social media that may assist in reducing this gap. The study investigates the information gap in Iraq in the context of the country's recent history of political and social upheaval. Design/methodology/approach – The study uses qualitative data collected through interviews with academic library managers, librarians and researchers in both Australia and Iraq. Findings – The findings demonstrate that currently academic librarians in Iraq and Australia use social media differently. The degradation of critical research infrastructure and reliable communication means that Iraqi librarians rely heavily on informal communication channels. The study finds that use of social media offers will enhance collaboration by Iraqi academic librarians and reduce the information gap. Research limitations/implications – There are some limitations in terms of selection sampling, approaching Iraqi participants and average quality of connections. It is suggested that snowballing and chain sampling should be used. Social implications – The ethical challenges that are faced by the Iraqi community with social cultural systems are in the early stages of valuing higher education and a scholarly communication system based on unfamiliar models. Originality/value – This study represents the first attempt to assess the information gap that exists in the wake of recent political and social upheaval, and to explore ways in which Iraqi librarians use social media to redress this gap

Knowledge management in distributed software development: a systematic review

Software development is characterized as a knowledge intensive activity. Particularly, Distributed Software Development (DSD) is an approach that demands more attention for coordination and communication among members of distributed team, due to regional, cultural and infrastructure differences. Knowledge has being, increasingly, seen as the most important strategic resource in organizations. So, the management of this knowledge is critical to organizational success. Knowledge Management (KM) is a set of processes directed at creating, capturing, storing, sharing, apply, and reuse of knowledge, which are useful to decision making. The purpose of this paper is to present a systematic review carried out to identify the processes, techniques, methods, practices and/or tools adopted for Knowledge Management in Distributed Software Development. With this systematic review some interesting points for research were identified.WIS - X Workshop ingeniería de softwareRed de Universidades con Carreras en Informática (RedUNCI

Risk management with enhanced tracing of requirements rationale in highly distributed projects

A recent survey with project managers of highly distributed projects at Siemens Program and Systems Engineering (PSE) brought up as main challenges: more severe communication hurdles compared to collocated teams and higher effort to communicate requirements in the team. In this paper, we address requirements tracing options to facilitate risk management with requirements clarification, collaboration, and knowledge management. We propose concepts for enhanced requirements tracing that include the rationale for requirements, related decisions, their history; and stakeholder value propositions. We sketch a cost-benefit model that helps the project manager to understand what tracing approach is worthwhile to address requirements risk in a project. The outcome lays the basis for planning empirical studies at PSE

An Empirical Framework Design to Examine the Improvement in Software Requirements through Negotiation

Negotiation is one promising effort during requirements elicitation process to improve the quality of software requirements. When negotiation is claimed beneficial theoretically, it is important that the deployment of negotiation is examined and the effectiveness of negotiation is evaluated through empirical study. This paper aims at providing an empirical framework design to examine the improvement in software requirements through negotiation. Besides, it elaborates the relevance of negotiation in requirements elicitation process and its effectiveness. An empirical study method is imposed to design the framework. The design is carefully established based the selection of population and participants, the experimental protocol, threats to validity and justification of measures

IDENTITY AND CROSS-CULTURAL MANAGEMENT IN GLOBALLY DISTRIBUTED INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY WORK

An interpretive case study was conducted to examine how team members construct their identities and manage cultural differences in globally distributed information technology work. Research investigating globally distributed information technology work acknowledges the influence of culture on team members and their work activities, but issues of team members’ individual identity and agency are under explored. Guided by social identity theory, our research findings suggest four identity categories constructed by global virtual team members, which are affected by societal culture, organizational culture, individual experience, and structure of the globally distributed IT work. They are: national identity, organizational identity, individual identity, and power identity. Manifestation of each identity is discussed along with how the enactment of these identities affects the ways in which global virtual team members manage cultural differences