Comparison of Team Effectiveness Between Globally Distributed and Locally Distributed Engineering Project Teams (original) (raw)

Dispersion, coordination and performance in global software teams: a systematic review

Effective team coordination is crucial for successful global software projects. Although considerable research effort has been made in this area, no agreement has been reached on the influence of dispersion on team coordination and performance. The objective of this paper is to summarize the evidence on the relationship among context dispersion, team coordination and performance in global software projects. We have performed a Systematic literature review (SLR) to collect relevant studies and a thematic analysis to synthesize the extracted data. We found 28 primary studies reporting the impact of five dispersion dimensions on team performance. Previously, only two primary studies considered and distinguished all of these dispersion dimensions in studying dispersed team performance. The dispersion dimensions affect team outcomes indirectly through influencing organic and mechanistic coordination processes. Empirical evidence show that geographical dispersion impacts negatively and temporal dispersion has a mixed effect on team performance. While studies with teams working across different time zones shows a tendency that the team performance is pessimistically perceived, studies that use direct measure on task performance shows a positive association to temporal dispersion. The paper provides implications for future research and practitioners in establishing effective distributed team coordination.

Intense collaboration in globally distributed work teams: Evolving patterns of dependencies and coordination

2005

Abstract: In today's internationalized world, value creation consists of knowledge and work integration involving workers from around the world. Members of these globally distributed work teams (GDWT) encounter organizational behavior issues (identity, cultural differences, and leadership) and organization design issues (dependencies, information processing, media use, and teamwork structures). While most research on GDWT focuses on the first set of issues, this chapter is among the few to systematically explore the second set.

Intense Collaboration In Globally Distributed Teams: Evolving Patterns Of Dependencies And Coordination

RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, 2004

As multinational firms and major offshore outsourcing companies develop experience with global work, their globally distributed teams face the challenge of collaborating intensely without the common interaction advantages associated with collocated work. This chapter analyzes the sources of intense collaboration. It then introduces strategies that organizations have developed to reduce the intensity of collaboration (sequentializing work, using mediating artifacts, modularity), or to enable intense teamwork (real time contact, boundary spanners). Strategy properties and deployment opportunities and constraints are indicated in order to equip managers and researchers with a framework for handling or analyzing globally distributed teamwork.

New Methods for Studying Global Virtual Teams: Towards a MultiFaceted Approach

2001

1 Virtual teams are increasingly global, creating challenges for communication and coordination due to greater distances, multiple time zones, and cultural differences. A longitudinal research program investigating communication and collaboration in globally distributed engineering design teams is described. Preliminary results illustrate the value of combining quantitative and qualitative sources of information on team communication, working patterns, and outcomes. Quantitative data includes communication logs, system usage data, and questionnaires. Qualitative data includes participant-observation, interviews, transcripts of team events, and incident reports. Findings focus on the appropriation of technology by teams, the "stickiness" of media usage patterns, the sometimes opposing effects of group technology on team perceptions and the impact of cultural and power issues on communication practices. Qualitative and quantitative data offer distinct, but complementary insights into team dynamics, supporting the view that understanding virtual team processes requires multi-faceted research approaches.

Spatial and Temporal Boundaries in Global Teams

IFIP International Federation for Information Processing, 2007

While spatial boundaries include the geographic differences among team members (e.g., different cities), temporal boundaries include the workday differences among team members (e.g., different time zones). In global teams, members have to deal with both spatial and temporal boundaries, since their co-workers are often located in cities within and across time zones. For global team members with high spatial boundaries and low temporal boundaries (e.g., different cities in the same time zone), synchronous communication technologies such as the telephone and instant messenger provide a means for real-time interaction. However, for global team members with high spatial boundaries and high temporal boundaries (e.g., different cities in different time zones), asynchronous communication technologies such as e-mail and web software provide a way to interact intermittently. Using social network data from 625 team members (representing 5986 pairs) across 137 global teams in a multinational semiconductor firm, we explore the impact of spatial and temporal boundaries on coordination delay. We also illustrate how member awareness can reduce coordination delay, thus increasing the likelihood of better global team performance.

A dimensional analysis of geographically distributed project teams: a case study

Journal of Engineering and Technology Management, 2004

In this paper, the authors describe a research project involving qualitative data collection from large organizations in the US, Japan and Europe. Its main objective is to understand what "distributed" means when discussing the management of distributed projects, an issue largely glossed over by the relevant literature. The discussion presented here suggests dimensions to the concept of "distributedness" through a theory-based model. An understanding of the distributedness dimensions simplifies the practical application of how to manage such systems.