Erran Carmel

Tactical approaches for alleviating distance in global software development

To overcome the problem of distance in global software development, various managers are experimenting and quickly adjusting their tactical approaches. We discuss some emerging approaches and explain their motivations from conceptual and practical perspectives. The most intuitive approach for alleviating distance is to apply communication technologies, but this is not our focus. Rather, we examine tactics that go beyond communication technologies, tactics aimed at reducing intensive collaboration, national and organizational cultural differences, and temporal distance.

Offshoring Information Technology: Sourcing and Outsourcing to a Global Workforce

Preface Part I. The Fundamentals: 1. The offshore landscape 2. Offshore economics and offshore risks 3. Beginning the offshore journey 4. The offshore country menu Part II. Managerial Competency: 5. Offshore strategy 6. Offshore legal issues 7. Managing the offshore transition 8. Overcoming distance and time 9. Dealing with cross-cultural issues Part III. Other Stakeholders: 10. Building software industries in developing nations 11. Marketing of offshore services - the provider perspective 12. Offshore politics Biographies References Index.

Browsing in hypertext: a cognitive study

Several dimensions of browsing are examined to find out: what browsing is and what cognitive processes are associated with it; whether there is a browsing strategy and, if so, whether there are any differences between how subject-area experts and novices browse; and how this knowledge can be applied to improve the design of hypertext systems. Two groups of students, subject-area experts and novices, were studied while browsing a Macintosh HyperCard application. Three browsing strategies were identified: (1) search-oriented browse: scanning and reviewing information relevant to a fixed task; (2) review-browse: scanning and reviewing interesting information in the presence of transient browse goals that represent changing tasks; and (3) scan-browse: scanning for interesting information without review. Most subjects used review-browse interspersed with search-oriented browse. Within this strategy, comparisons showed that experts browsed in more depth, and viewed information differently than did novices. Based on these findings, suggestions are made to hypertext developers. >

The impact of time separation on coordination in global software teams: a conceptual foundation

While there has been much research on the study of global virtual teams and global software teams, there has been practically no research on the nuances of time separation. We present three converging perspectives on this topic: (a) a view from practices and tactics of global teams; (b) a theoretical view from coordination theories; and (c) a view from our prior research in which we modeled coordination costs for time-separated dyads. Practice suggests that time separation arises not only from time-zone differences but also from factors such as nonoverlapping weekend days and holidays, shifts, and different working schedules. It also suggests that teams employ various coping tactics when faced with time separation—synchronous, asynchronous, and education. Theory suggests that communication is necessary to coordinate and that effectiveness of communication is hampered, both in quality and timeliness, when teams are separated by time. Our model, based on coordination theory, suggests that coordination costs contain four main components—communication, clarification, delay, and rework—and that the various aspects of time-separated work have different effects on each of these components. Our convergent view from these three perspectives shows that distance separation is symmetric—i.e. distance (A, B) = distance (B,A)—while time separation is asymmetric, which affects the planning of team interactions; that the timing of activities matters in time-separated contexts but not in contexts with only distance separation; and that vulnerability costs (i.e. resolving misunderstandings and rework) increase with time separation. Copyright

Why 'nearshore' means that distance matters

When sourcing abroad, a growing number of companies now weigh whether the location is near vs. far.

Small Firms and Offshore Software Outsourcing: High Transaction Costs and Their Mitigation

It seems surprising that small firms engage in offshore outsourcing given that they lack the resources that large firms possess to overcome the difficulties involved. We examine these factors using transaction cost theory’s three stages: contact costs, contract costs, and control costs. Then, using our field data from small client firms (in the United States and the United Kingdom), intermediaries, and offshore vendors, we analyze the mitigation approaches that reduce transaction costs for small firms. We identify nine such approaches: three for client firms and six for suppliers. For the small client firm, they are liaisons of knowledge flows, gaining experience, and overcoming opportunism; and, for the service providers, they are onshore presence, reducing contact costs, simplifying contracting, providing control channels, expert intermediaries, and standardization of services.

The New Software Exporting Nations: Success Factors

Many nations are attempting to craft successful software exporting industries to emulate the remarkable success of India in this area. What are these success factors? We introduce the “Oval model” that incorporates eight factors that lead software industries to export success. The eight factors are: 1) Government vision and policies, including funding and tax benefits. 2) Human capital, including national orientation and traditions, quantity, composition, language skills, and managerial skills. 3) Wages. 4) Quality of life, since talented professionals tend to concentrate in desirable locations. 5) Linkages, which emerge between individuals, between work groups, between firms, and between nations due to geographic, cultural, linguistic, or ethnic connections. 6) Technological infrastructure. 7) Capital, which can come from domestic and foreign sources. 8) Industry characteristics, including: clustering effects, the number of firms, their size, the associations which organize the industrys firms, the industrys degree of common vision and branding, and the standards that the firms aspire to.

Taxonomy of New Software Exporting Nations

In recent years dozens of nations have begun exporting software products and services. We label these nations the “new software exporting nations”. We introduce a four‐tier taxonomy of software exporting nations. Thresholds for the tiers are defined by export revenues, by cluster size, and by maturity. Tier 1 nations are the major software exporting nations; Tier 2 nations are the transition software exporting nations (China and Russia); Tier 3 nations are the emerging software exporting nations (e.g., Brazil, Bulgaria); and Tier 4 nations are the infant stage software exporting nations (e.g., Vietnam, Cuba).

Bridging Global Boundaries for IS Project Success

Despite the increasing attention to global IS work, there is limited understanding of why and how global IS development projects succeed or fail. Based on the literature on IS success and global teams, we develop a conceptual framework for global IS development project success. We also conducted interviews with nine global IS project managers to validate this framework through a qualitative attribution analysis to identify common themes and patterns of the interview results. Global project managers identified time separation, cultural differences and geographic distance as the most significant barriers to project success. Organizations implemented various communication mechanisms, task programming, and project control methods to mitigate global risks, leading to project success.

The effect of time separation on coordination costs in global software teams: a dyad model

Research to date has not addressed the difficulties of coordinating across time zones in global software development. We present a preliminary collaboration model to help us understand the consequences of time separation on coordination costs. The model is for a team composed of dyads and each dyad consists of a task requestor and a task producer who have a sequential workflow dependency. The model is constructed with formulas for: production, coordination, and vulnerability costs for a number of: (1) collaboration modes; (2) time overlap conditions; (3) asynchronous and synchronous communications mechanisms, each of different quality and cost; and (4) production and delay cost rates. We describe the model and evaluate it with regression analysis using randomly generated observations. Our evaluation shows that the model adequately represents time-separated work and that time-separation effects are: (1) different and more complex than distance-separation effects; (2) asymmetric, depending on whether work time overlap between the two actors occurs at the beginning or end of an actors day; and (3) dependent on the amount of this overlap.