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include knowledge management, IT enabled organizational forms such as virtual teams and communities,

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: We thank the senior editor on the manuscript, V. Sambamurthy, and the anonymous associate editor and reviewers for their many insightful suggestions on earlier

The emerging work on understanding open source software has strongly argued for the importance of understanding what leads to effectiveness in OSS development, has frequently pointed to ideology and communication as probable factors in effectiveness, and has presented conflicting opinions about the role of trust in effectiveness. For all the discussion of these issues, there has been no comprehensive elaboration of what constitutes OSS ideology, and very little empirical data has been brought to bear on examining antecedents of OSS team effectiveness. This paper develops a framework of the OSS ideology (including specific norms, beliefs, and values) and a theoretical model to show how components of the ideology, combined with trust and communication, impact effectiveness in OSS teams. The research model proposes distinct roles for affective trust, cognitive trust, social communication, and task communication as determinants of OSS team effectiveness. Qualitative and quantitative data are analyzed to evaluate the model. The results suggest that in order for OSS projects to grow into the kind of large successes that prior work has studied, the teams that work on them should foster the norms and values of the larger community and maintain consistent task communication to develop cognitive trust among members. Keywords: Open Source Software, Trust, Ideology, Communication, Virtual Teams ISRL categories: DA01, DA06, DD02 EFFECTIVENESS IN OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT TEAMS While the practices associated with Open Source Software (OSS) development have been in use for decades, recent years have seen a surge of interest in OSS across developers, businesses, governments, and academic researchers. Since its inception, more than 67,000 projects have been registered on Sourcefo...

Advances in information technology, coupled with competitive pressures, have led to the increasing use of virtual teams in organizations. Their growing popularity has attracted the attention of researchers in both information systems and organizational behaviour. Despite the fact that research on this topic is blooming, our understanding of the virtual team phenomenon is still at an embryonic stage and there is much to learn about such teams before we can fully reap their potential benefits. In our view, a preliminary but necessary step is to investigate the multifaceted nature of virtual teams, so as to better define the true object of our investigations. Therefore, this paper first explores a basic definition of what a virtual team truly is and differentiates it from other related concepts such as virtua l group, virtual organization, virtual community, and telecommuting. In a second step, we identify those key characteristics that 1) differentiate virtual teams from conventional ones and 2) distinguish alternative configurations of virtual teams. Lastly, we illustrate how different configurations of virtual teams may raise different challenges and how management strategies must be chosen accordingly to ensure success. Implications for both practice and research are discussed in the conclusion section.

Decision Support systems The increasingly global nature of software development and the increasing diversity in the information systems (IS) workforce have led to failures arising from inadequate understanding of cultural influences on IS design and development. This study aims to examine the relationship between the cultural background and development values of IS developers through a field survey in Singapore and the United States. The relationship between two cultural dimensions (individualism-collectivism and masculinity-femininity) and three development values (technical, economic, and socio-political) of IS developers were investigated. A model relating cultural dimensions to development values was formulated. The findings indicate that both individualism-collectivism and masculinity-femininity are related to the technical, economic, and socio-political values of IS developers (including DSS developers). Implications for further research and practice are discussed.

Negotiation theory and research has proliferated over the last several decades, causing Kramer and Messick (1995) to remark that “few areas of conflict research have enjoyed as much vogue…or can claim as much substantive progress, as negotiation theory ” (p. vii). While true, we also contend that the negotiation theory that has evolved over the last 25 years of research in the United States and Northern Europe is laden with values and assumptions that are Western. Though it may be an historical accident that negotiation theory originated and proliferated in the West, a non-Western origin would surely generate a social science that would look very different, because social science theory reflects the dominant patterns of the culture in which it originates (Pruitt, 2004). In this chapter, we take a meta-theoretical approach to the field of negotiation. Our purpose is to identify what the underlying assumptions of negotiation theory might look like from the point of view of non-Western culture, by which we mean primarily, but by no means exclusively, Asian cultures. Our purpose is not to provide a detailed review of all the negotiation and culture literature. Such a review is available in our edited volume Handbook of Negotiation and Culture (Gelfand & Brett, 2004). The Handbook has chapters on cognition, motivation, emotion, communication, conflict management, context, etc. Each chapter by a negotiation scholar is paired with a chapter by a scholar who studies culture and negotiation. In reading the Handbook, it is clear that the two sets of scholars are often working from contrasting assumptions about what is normative for social interaction. We begin by defining culture and explaining the role of fundamental cultural assumptions in organizing social interaction. We then identify five assumptions that dominate Western culture theorizing about negotiations. We examine each assumption in terms of the fundamental problem of social interaction to which the assumption is a response, refer to the research that relies on the assumption, explain how the assumption reflects Western cultural traditions, describe an alternative

As modern organizations increasingly operate in a global economy, they need IT support around the globe; favorable economic conditions also encourage the use of offshore IT teams. However, when IT efforts "go global," issues and challenges typical of IT development and support are magnified. In this paper, we review and integrate three research areas that contribute to our understanding and management of global IT support teams: studies of global teamwork practices, small group dynamics theory, and studies of virtual teams. We review key findings from these areas and discuss a case example of global IT support to illustrate the insights possible through these research perspectives. We conclude by outlining an agenda for future research on teamwork in global IT support.

Abstract. Research involving team mental models in the past has often focused on cross training fundamentals (correctness to a procedure) for the sharedness shown between teammates. However, evidence has shown that this may not be the best measure to distinguish a proficient team from a non-proficient team. Instead some believe that more emphasis should be placed on other cognitive factors being more closely related correctness to a teammates ’ schema. This paper attempts to tackle this task through the use of concept mapping and simulated tasks that require team efficiency. It is theorized that teams exhibiting the highest levels of both correct mental models toward and expert model (task correctness) and correct mental models toward teammates’ mental models (familiarity) will perform at greater levels than those teams that are lacking in one or more of these areas. 1