UBC Faculty Research and Publications

Matching expectations: When culture wreaks havoc with global software development Hsieh, Yvonne; Kruchten, Philippe; MacGregor, Eve

Abstract

In this research, we examine how intercultural factors affect—positively or negatively—the outcomes of software development practices. In the past decade, the North American and Western European IT industries have observed a rapid increase in the number of companies either outsourcing software projects for development abroad or starting their own development centers in remote locations. In spite of great promises and anticipation, many global software development projects fail. After failures, one party is quick to blame the other’s perceived lack of diligence, commitment, or ability; or to blame technology. But we observed that projects often fail because of subtle intercultural issues that impact the effectiveness of coordination in the distributed team. To explore this matter, we examine the concept of culture and the potential impact of intercultural dynamics on global software development projects. There has been little analytical research done in this area and the effect of intercultural factors has, thus far, been assessed based on anecdotal accounts by project managers. Our research combines the grounded theory and case study research, starting with a collection of critical incidents in global projects. We present a descriptive conceptual framework, for coordination between individuals and teams, that has emerged from our data and use it to analyze and explain some of our findings.

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Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 Canada