Global Software Development; the Dimension of Culture

The globalisation of the software market has changed the contextual boundaries of IS research and practices to include the wider societal context. Some attempts have been made to document differences amongst IS professionals from different nations, but most of these studies have compared IS or IS related issues in only two countries mainly by using an ethnocentric approach (the same research is replicated in a second culture). In general, research in IS has not considered culture when investigating the process of software development. Particularly quality related issues seem to be missing in the literature. Software development departments face many challenges in today’s rapidly changing and highly competitive global environment. Management of virtual organisations and organisations with teams working across national borders, meet difficulties when applying traditional management approaches. Since the 1980s, offshore outsourcing (contracting of a portion or all of the software development function to software engineers outside the home country) has also become a trend. Software engineers from different countries may have cultural perspectives that are different from those adhered to by the corporations that hire them. Researchers call for caution in managing global workers. They argue that behavioural traits of diverse work groups can contribute to dysfunctional organisations. In other industries greater attention has been paid to aspects of societal environment, including national culture, economic structure, the political and legal environment and national infrastructures, especially in a transnational context. Understanding these aspects will also enable IT managers in multinational organisations to operate more appropriately in countries other than their own. Because of the increased complexity of global organisations and their dependency on people with different underlying norms, values and beliefs, there is a need for existing quality and maturity models to be extended to incorporate human, organisational and cultural issues. The globalisation does not imply homogeneity of cultures. This paper discusses the implications of the globalisation in software development. In particular problems in managing virtual teams and offshore outsourcing will be discussed.