Antecedents of knowledge sharing in globally distributed software development teams

Abstract

Knowledge is seen as a source of competitive advantage in organizations. The need to cater to global market places, competitive pressures and to avail the best resource possible has given rise to distributed form of working, which is further enabled by technological advances. The prime advantage of distributed form of working is access to diverse sources of knowledge, and hence sharing of knowledge is a prerequisite for effective outcomes. This paper presents a conceptual framework and develops testable propositions by identifying team level antecedents of knowledge sharing in distributed work context. Analysis plan and directions for future research is also discussed in the paper. The key contribution of this study is to view the knowledge sharing process in teams with respect to different dimensions of distributedness, and relational attributes of the team.