Effect of team diversity on software project performance
| Published date | 29 May 2007 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/02635570710750408 |
| Date | 29 May 2007 |
| Pages | 636-653 |
| Author | Ting‐Peng Liang,Chih‐Chung Liu,Tse‐Min Lin,Binshan Lin |
| Subject Matter | Economics,Information & knowledge management,Management science & operations |
Effect of team diversity
on software project performance
Ting-Peng Liang and Chih-Chung Liu
Department of Information Management,
National Sun Yat-sen University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan, Republic of China
Tse-Min Lin
Compal Communications, Inc., Taipei, Taiwan, Republic of China, and
Binshan Lin
College of Business Administration,
Louisiana State University in Shreveport, Shreveport, Louisiana, USA
Abstract
Purpose – This research seeks to investigate the relationship between knowledge diversity (KD) in
software teams and project performance. Previous research has shown that member diversity affects
team performance; most of that work, however, has focused on diversity in personal or social
attributes, such as gender or social category. Current research targets at the knowledge level aim to
facilitate the implementation of knowledge management in organizations.
Design/methodology/approach – A research framework was developed based on conflict theory
and empirically tested on software teams in Taiwan.
Findings – It was found that KD increases task conflict, which in turn has significant positive effects
on team performance and that value diversity (VD) increases relationship conflict, which in turn
negatively affects team performance.
Research limitations/implications – The findings indicate that task conflict can enhance team
performance, while relationship conflict can reduce team performance. Therefore, it is important to
maintain healthy relationships among team members.
Practical implications – This research concludes that KD is beneficial and that VD is harmful to
project outcome in software development. It is, therefore, useful for managers to form teams whose
members encompass a broad knowledge base.
Originality/value – This paper proposes a novel way to measure knowledge and VD in teams and
reports the effects of these attributes on team performance. The work also shows that a proper level of
task conflict in a software team is necessary for achieving high performance.
Keywords Knowledge management, Value analysis,Conflict, Software engineering
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
The performance of software development teams is an important topic in the
information systems (IS) domain. As evident by Moore’s law, the information industry
has prospered greatly due to rapid price reductions for computer hardware (Kelly,
1998). The enhancement and advancement of function also has played an important
role in expediting this progress. However, the success rate of software projects is much
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/0263-5577.htm
The research was partially supported by research grants to the first author from National
Science Council of Taiwan under the contract numbers NSC 92-2416-H110-017,
93-2416-H110-005, and 95-2752-H-110-004-PAE.
IMDS
107,5
636
Industrial Management & Data
Systems
Vol. 107 No. 5, 2007
pp. 636-653
qEmerald Group Publishing Limited
0263-5577
DOI 10.1108/02635570710750408
lower than desired. For example, 18 percent of all projects fail and 53 percent are
challenged (Standish Group, 2004). These projects were completed years behind
schedule, exceeded their budget by millions of dollars, and failed to meet their users’
needs even if completed. Thus, software development is a high-risk enterprise (Karlsen
et al., 2006; Faisal et al., 2006). A long-standing key question that has intrigued the
minds of researchers concerns the problem in managing software projects efficiently
while promoting team performance (Robey and Smith, 1993).
In search of factors for successful team performance, researchers have examined
various personality characteristics of team members. As software development is a
labor- and knowledge-intensive task, teamwork in software projects has been long
acknowledged as a crucial criterion for the successful design and deployment of
software projects (Jiang et al., 2003; Gottschalk and Solli-Sather, 2007). Every software
project will inevitably face the issue of team composition. It has interested researchers
whether bringing diversity in team composition would promote successful teamwork
and further lead a project towards fulfillment of its mission, vision, and values. To
quantify successful team performance, researchers have studied the personality
characteristics, interpersonal relationships and interactions among team members
(Barki and Hartwick, 2001; Gottschalk and Karlsen, 2005). Previous research, however,
has not shown any major consistent effects of team member diversity on work
performance. Byrne’s (1971) similarity-attraction theory suggested that similarity in
interaction, value, and demographics are favored virtues in team composition as they
help maintain effective work environments. In contrast, some diversity the orists and
group researchers (Cox et al., 1991; Jehn, 1995; Guzzo and Dickson, 1996) have
proclaimed the benefits of diversity in workgroups. Current findings about the effect of
diversity on team performance are mixed (Williams and O’Reilly, 1998). Therefore,
further research is required to identify the factors underlying the relationship between
team diversity and software team performance.
In this study, we derived and tested a new theoretical model to explore what and
how diversity affects the performance of software development teams. More specific,
we address the following research questions in this paper:
RQ1. What kinds of relationships exist between the composition of software teams
and performance?
RQ2. How does team diversity affect the performance of software development
projects?
This research provides a model to explain the effect of diversity on software team
performance and an empirical study to test this model. We report two major findings.
First, knowledge diversity (KD) significantly increases task conflict, and task conflict
positively affects team performance. Project leaders can leverage the knowledge
differences of members in order to achieve higher performance. Second, VD increases
relationship conflict, which negatively affects performance. Hence, the diversity of
values among team members should be minimized. Moreover, interpersonal
relationships must be managed carefully in situations where team members have
very different values. These findings will help decision makers manage software
projects by selecting appropriate team members and effectively managing diversity in
workgroups for project success.
Effect of team
diversity
637
To continue reading
Request your trial