The need for trust relationships to enable successful virtual team collaboration in software outsourcing
by Kerstin V. Siakas, Errikos Siakas
International Journal of Technology, Policy and Management (IJTPM), Vol. 8, No. 1, 2008

Abstract: This paper explores the significance and the challenges of trust in offshore outsourcing relationships, which rely to a high degree on virtual team members, transcending time, space and culture. The challenges are highlighted by integrating recent literature concerning outsourcing, virtual teams, culture, and interpersonal and organisational trust. In order to investigate these challenges empirically, we assimilate the results from a field study concerning the synchronous and asynchronous virtual collaboration of software engineering team members from three countries. Experiments and surveys are also carried out in a virtual student environment. Our findings reveal that trust is culture bound and therefore calls for cultural awareness and special precautions. The advantages gained in outsourcing relationships that could demonstrate trust between partners are improved communication, enhanced capabilities of problem solving and decision making, improved efficiency and quality outcomes, as well as the mitigation of opportunistic behaviour. The study raises a number of issues, to be explored and debated by future research.

Online publication date: Sat, 08-Dec-2007

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