ABSTRACT

The advent of globalisation has led to the growing use of global virtual teams (GVT) for software development. The use of such teams enables organisations to operate across national, economic and social, and cultural boundaries; this new form of teamwork presents challenges for traditional coordination mechanisms. Hence, a range of new operational problems for the coordination of software development teams have emerged due to the nature of virtual work: these are related to issues of geographical distance, language differences, time zone(s) differences, cultural differences, and trust. This paper applies a theoretical model drawn from prior research to explore the coordination mechanisms employed by a global virtual software development team in a major multi-national telecommunications organisation. The study analyses the impact that the aforementioned issues have on the effectiveness of project team coordination mechanisms and then develops a refined conceptual model to guide future research on global virtual software development teams. The findings also inform practice on the problems encountered in ensuring the effective coordination of such teams.

摘要

全球化的出现导致越来越多地使用全球虚拟团队 (GVT) 进行软件开发。使用这样的团队使组织能够跨越国家、经济和社会以及文化界限；这种新形式的团队合作对传统的协调机制提出了挑战。因此，由于虚拟工作的性质，出现了一系列软件开发团队协调的新操作问题：这些问题与地理距离、语言差异、时区差异、文化差异和信任问题有关。本文应用从先前研究中提取的理论模型来探索主要跨国电信组织中全球虚拟软件开发团队采用的协调机制。该研究分析了上述问题对项目团队协调机制有效性的影响，然后开发了一个完善的概念模型，以指导未来对全球虚拟软件开发团队的研究。调查结果还为实践提供了有关确保此类团队有效协调时遇到的问题的信息。