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Project managers in global software development teams: a study of the effects on productivity and performance

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Abstract

Globalization is having a deep impact on today’s world economy. One of the most affected industries is the software industry. Recently, global software development (GSD) has gained a lot of attention. This new trend of producing software is influencing all software processes, including human resource management. The aim of this study is to provide an overview of the implications of GSD for software project managers by analyzing project performance from different perspectives such as the 360-degree feedback evaluation. Results show that performance of GSD projects is lower than in-house projects, but apart from that, this study reveals that there are also negative consequences for software project managers, which need to be taken into account. For instance, the experiment revealed a lack of attention to tasks by software project managers and, as a consequence of this, performance losses. The main conclusions of this research may be valuable for software development organizations.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Fundación Cajamurcia for the financial support provided.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Ricardo Colomo-Palacios, Leganes, Madrid, Spain

    Ricardo Colomo-Palacios, Cristina Casado-Lumbreras, Pedro Soto-Acosta, Francisco José García-Peñalvo & Edmundo Tovar

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  1. Ricardo Colomo-Palacios
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  2. Cristina Casado-Lumbreras
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  3. Pedro Soto-Acosta
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  4. Francisco José García-Peñalvo
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  5. Edmundo Tovar
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Correspondence to Ricardo Colomo-Palacios.

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Colomo-Palacios, R., Casado-Lumbreras, C., Soto-Acosta, P. et al. Project managers in global software development teams: a study of the effects on productivity and performance. Software Qual J 22, 3–19 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11219-012-9191-x

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