An insight into the interplay between culture, conflict and distance in globally distributed requirements negotiations

There is an increasing interest in research addressing issues of global software development. Specifying software requirements is a communication-intensive collaborative activity that is increasingly performed across cultural, language and time zone boundaries. While inadequate communication significantly impacts the bridging of geographical distance between stakeholders, the cultural differences cannot be considered less significant. Findings from two global software development organizations enables us to present a model of impact of distance and the affected requirements activities due to problems of cultural diversity, inadequate communication, knowledge management and time differences. This evidence provides an important insight into the interplay between culture and conflict as well as the impact of distance on the ability to reconcile different viewpoints with regards to requirements and requirements processes.

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