Shared Experience, Outcome, and Forgetting: An Empirical Study

Shared experience (i.e., experience working together in prior projects) among project team members is known to affect the project team’s performance. However, little is known of whether this effect is moderated by other factors. In this study, we examine the two attributes of shared experience as moderators: the outcome of shared experience and the time lapse of shared experience. We find that the effect of shared experience on project performance shows an inverse U-shaped curve with respect to the degree of failure (or success) of shared experience, suggesting that the effect of shared experience on project performance becomes strongest under intermediate degrees of failure (or success) of shared experience but comparatively weaker when the degree of failure (or success) is high or low. Moreover, we find that the inverse U-shaped curve becomes more flattened as the lapse of shared experience increases. This study makes a theoretical contribution by finding nonlinear moderating effects of shared experience. It also provides practical implications to software project management.

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