Identity ambiguity and the promises and practices of hybrid e-HRM project teams

The role of IS project team identity work in the enactment of day-to-day relationships with their internal clients is under-researched. We address this gap by examining the identity work undertaken by an electronic human resource management (e-HRM) 'hybrid' project team engaged in an enterprise-wide IS implementation for their multi-national organisation. Utilising social identity theory, we identify three distinctive, interrelated dimensions of project team identity work (project team management, team 'value propositions' (promises) and the team's 'knowledge practice'). We reveal how dissonance between two perspectives of e-HRM project identity work (clients' expected norms of project team's service and project team's expected norms of themselves) results in identity ambiguity. Our research contributions are to identity studies in the IS project management, HR and hybrid literatures and to managerial practice by challenging the assumption that hybrid experts are the panacea for problems associated with IS projects

Information Technology and Knowledge in Software Development Teams: The Role of Project Uncertainty

Knowledge is a strategic resource; information technology (IT) is presumed to facilitate its movement among organizational members. The relevant literature, however, is inconclusive. This study reports the results of the effect of IT on knowledge-sharing processes, i.e., knowledge exchange and knowledge combination, under conditions of project uncertainty. Our results indicate that both exchange and combination are necessary to fully explain the relationships and that the consideration of a project's outcome is also important. While project uncertainty confounds the knowledge-sharing processes regardless of technology, the frequency of technology use routinely increases knowledge exchange and combination in a software team

Understanding The Role Of Social Capital In Expertise Coordination In Information Systems Development (isd) Teams

Information system development (ISD) project is a knowledge-intensive teamwork process which requires members to coordinate their expertise to generate the final outcome. Breakdown or coordination and insufficient knowledge integration have been reported as critical factors which lead to ISD project failure. Most existing coordination literature focus on the effect of administrative coordination mechanisms toward project performance which hints that more efforts are needed to understand expertise coordination and explore ways to improve it. Addressing the above issues, two studies in this dissertation attempt to understand expertise coordination within the IS development team based on social capital perspective. The first study, based on intention-behavior literature, knowledge management research, and Gerwin\u27s (2004) coordination model, investigates relationships among willingness, competence, and actual expertise coordination. The relationships between expertise coordination and teamwork outcomes are also examined. The second study incorporates social capital theory and examines (1) dependencies among three dimensions of social capital and (2) linkage between social capital and expertise coordination. Data collected from more than five hundred information systems project team members was used to test the proposed hypotheses. The analysis results confirmed most of the hypotheses. This dissertation contributes to coordination, project management, and team mental model research through many perspectives. In each study, directions for management practice and future research are discussed

Unexpected Events in IT Projects: A Conceptual Review and Research Agenda

When unexpected events occur, IT project teams need to react appropriately in order to limit the potentially negative, and sometimes disastrous consequences of such events. Yet, while past research has identified unexpected events as being an important aspect to consider when managing projects, the existing literature does not provide a clear conceptualization of this concept which limits the development of new theories and thus the ability to guide practitioners. Based on a literature review and to advance our understanding of unexpected events in IT projects and their effective management, and facilitate future theoretical developments on IT project management, the present paper develops a conceptualization that clearly distinguishes this concept from other closely related ones, as well as proposing a research framework that links it to IT project team responses and their consequences. A detailed research agenda, integrating current advances in different fields, is developed to highlight future research avenues

Knowledge Integration and Team Effectiveness: A Team Goal Orientation Approach

Knowledge integration is critical to achieving both objective and subjective team effectiveness goals. Integrating knowledge resources, however, is a challenging activity for teams. Converging the theories of team goal orientation and knowledge integration, in this study we examine how team goal orientation impacts a team's internal knowledge integration, and how knowledge integration, in turn, affects multiple dimensions of team effectiveness. Data were collected from 90 self-directed teams engaged in an extended business simulation, where each team acted as a top management team of a business firm. Results indicated that both learning and performance-prove goal orientations positively influenced team knowledge integration, and knowledge integration impacted both objective and subjective dimensions of team effectiveness. We also found partial support for a mediating role of internal knowledge integration. The study recommends a goal orientation approach to integrating knowledge in teams and proposes that this approach has significant implications for both research and practice

Innovation Process is Facilitated in Virtual Environment of R&D Teams

Innovation is becoming the most important key issue for company's success in the 21st century. In the competitive environment it is necessary for the enterprises to put together different capabilities and services with the goal. It is widely accepted that innovation can be better achieved by working in team particularly in the virtual environments. The employed web services technology, although very popular nowadays but it is still not mature enough, so dealing with it can bring new findings. Virtual teams base on information technology are formed to facilitate transnational innovation processes and it should be noted that innovation has a positive impact on corporate performance if it is well guided. This has the pronounced effect when it comes to the learning issues as the virtual preconditions persist. In this environment the possibility of getting closer to the interest of learner from the new environment raise as the barriers being imposed by the service provider is reduced and the freedom of what is require to learn is improved. Information and communication technology has brought about significant changes in organizations and produced important benefits, including in the areas of innovation which is recognized as a prime source of national competitive advantage. This contribution proposes a conceptual model for understanding and analyzing the process of virtual R&D team as an innovation and technology assimilation facilitator when it comes to the issue of conveying innovative message for learning by individuals. The context of the knowledge-based economy introduces a major shift from serial to simultaneous R&D in the way of idea conception to technology creation is conceived. This paper briefly reviews the existing perspectives on virtual teams and their effect on innovation and technology regarding the learning capability which is being altered. It also discusses the main characteristics of virtual teams and clarifies the different aspects of virtual team application in the topic. To support the theoretical analysis, this paper provides a comprehensive review based on authentic and reputed publications. We argue that scanty research has been conducted to facilitate understanding the problem of systematically governing creative innovation toward a technology through virtual R&D teams in the atmosphere of educating individuals based on what they interest them to learn.Virtual team; e-learning; Innovation; Research and development, Learning

Software project process management maturity and project performance: An examination of Taiwan\u27s software companies

Researchers and practitioners argue that an inadequate software development process is one critical factor accounting for high project failure rates. a result, the Capability Maturity Model (CMM) was introduced by the Software Engineering Institute as a guideline for advancing project maturity and improving the odds of project success. To investigate the effectiveness of applying the principles of the CMM, a survey was conducted of 196 Information System managers in Taiwan. The results indicate that a more mature software development process reduces the extent of certain risks experienced during the project development and enables better project performance. Managerial implications regarding the CMM are described

Leader delegation and trust in global software teams

Virtual teams are an important work structure in global software development. The distributed team structure enables access to a diverse set of expertise which is often not available in one location, to a cheaper labor force, and to a potentially accelerated development process that uses a twenty-four hour work structure. Many software teams are partially distributed, that is, part of the team is colocated. Such partially distributed global software teams are an important work structure in software development projects. However, little is known about what affects or improves team members’ motivation and job satisfaction in the partially distributed environment. This study investigates the effects of leader delegation to sub-teams and trust between sub-teams on global software team members’ motivation and job satisfaction. It proposes a research framework based on specific hypotheses regarding these effects. A survey instrument was created and a pilot study conducted on student project teams in two U.S. universities. In addition, a study combining interviews and a survey distribution using industry software development teams was also conducted. The studies found that team competence predicts leader delegation to a sub-team in global software projects. Leader delegation related to teamwork process improves team members’ motivation and satisfaction with the leader. However, leader delegation may also generate negative consequences for the sub-teams, such as anxiety and pressure. Cultural distance and geographical distance impair trust development between members across sub-teams. Temporal distance causes conflicts related to excessive overtime and meeting scheduling. Trust in sub-teams is critical to improving motivation in a global software project. In addition, this study explores the impacts of language differences and software engineering profession culture on global software team members’ interactions. Suggestions are proposed for how to shape delegation strategies in partially distributed global software projects and how to improve team members’ trust in each other and their motivation. This work provides important findings for organizations interested in developing leadership skills for global software teams and retaining IT professionals at distributed sites

Applying global software development approaches to building high-performing software teams

The rapid progress of communication technologies combined with the growing competition for talents and knowledge has made it necessary to reassess the potential of distributed development which has significantly changed the landscape of the IT industry introducing a variety of cooperation models and making notable changes to the software team work environment. Along with this, enterprises pay more attention to teams’ performance improvement, employing emerging management tools for building up efficient software teams, and trying to get the most out of understanding factors which significantly impact a team’s overall performance. The objective of the research is to systematize factors characterizing high-performing software teams; indicate the benefits of global software development (GSD) models positively influencing software teams’ development performance; and study how companies’ strategies can benefit from distributed development approaches in building high-performing software teams. The thesis is designed as a combination of a systematic literature review followed by qualitative research in the form of semi-structured interviews to validate the findings regarding classification of GSD models’ benefits and their influence on the development of high-performing software teams. At a literature review stage, the research (1) introduces a team performance factors’ model reflecting the aspects which impact the effectiveness of development teams; (2) suggests the classification of GSD models based on organizational, legal, and temporal characteristics, and (3) describes the benefits of GSD models which influence the performance of software development teams. Within the empirical part of the study, we refine the classification of GSD models’ benefits based on the qualitative analysis results of semi-structured interviews with practitioners from IT industry, form a comparison table of GSD benefits depending on the model in question, and introduce recommendations for company and team management regarding the application of GSD in building high-performing software teams. IT corporations, to achieve their strategic goals, can enrich their range of available tools for managing high-performing teams by considering the peculiarities of different GSD models. Company and team management should evaluate the advantages of the distributed operational models, and use the potential and benefits of available configurations to increase teams’ performance and build high-performing software teams

An analysis on key factors of Agile Project Management

Agile software development is a new method for developing and implementing software. It depends more on ad hoc approaches to planning and control in favor of the more organic processes of teamwork and mutual education. After reviewing several case studies of business initiatives, this chapter defines and describes agile project management. It discusses the historical context of the shift from conventional management's emphasis on top-down supervision and process standardization to agile's emphasis on self-managing teams, with all of the advantages and complications it entails. In this section, you will study the four cornerstones of agile project management: minimal critical specification, self-organizing teams, redundancy, and feedback and learning