Interpersonal relationships prove to be critical to the success of projects for globally distributed virtual teams, according to Bentley University professors S. Balaji, Donald Chand and Gary David. Their research earned a Best Paper Award from the Global Business Development Institute, presented at the organization’s 17th International Conference in December 2012.
Findings reveal that proactive interpersonal relationship building is a critical success factor in virtual team projects and can eliminate an “us versus them” mindset among remote worksites. The paper — Interpersonal Relationship Building: An Additional Factor Necessary for the Success of Global Software Development Projects — specifically explored the factors responsible for the success of a software development project performed by a globally distributed team for Globalis, an information systems company with captive offshore centers in the U.S., Ireland and India.
“Existing research in project management has found that interpersonal relations may remove distrust and fear, and create a cohesive work environment among team members,” says Chand. “Our paper found that interpersonal relationships and group identity are critical to the final outcome, and outlines specific mechanisms through which they can be built among globally distributed team members.”
Proactive personal relationship building decreased the social distance between the team members and ultimately created a “we” relationship. Instead of bringing new team members from the satellite sites to the headquarters for training, we found that sending senior developers to the satellite sites for initial training results in:
- Garnering a better understanding of working conditions;
- Experiencing each other’s popular culture (music, books, and mass media, for example) transcend geographic and cultural boundaries;
- Building rapport among team members through informal talks and social activities that develops interpersonal and group-based trust.
“The interpersonal trust helped the trainers to easily transfer their positive experience d to their other team members upon return to their home teams,” Chand notes.
“Creating an environment that builds on-going rapport ultimately shielded teams from conflicts and the negative impacts of global work.” Gary David adds, “Ultimately it is not just about building interpersonal relations, but about developing a shared group identity. Through this, workers can move from an ‘Us/Them’ to a ‘We’ orientation in which trust is maximized and collaboration made more possible.”
S. Balaji is assistant professor of information and process management at Bentley University; Donald Chand is professor of information and process management at Bentley University; Gary David is associate professor of sociology at Bentley University.