TY - JOUR
T1 - Does distance still matter? Revisiting the CSCW fundamentals on distributed collaboration
AU - Bjørn, Pernille
AU - Esbensen, Morten
AU - Jensen, Rasmus Eskild
AU - Matthiesen, Stina
PY - 2014/11/1
Y1 - 2014/11/1
N2 - Does distance still matter? Reporting on a comparative analysis of four ethnographic studies of global software development, this article analyzes the fundamental aspects of distance as depicted in the famous paper "Distance Matters." The results suggest that, although while common ground, collaboration readiness, and organizational management are still important aspects for distributed collaboration, the arguments concerning coupling of work and collaboration technology readiness need to be refined. We argue that in working remotely, closely coupled work tasks encourage remote workers to spend the extra effort required in articulation of work to make the collaboration function. Also we find that people in distributed software development have already made collaborative technologies part of their work, and individuals are comfortable with them; thus, collaboration technology readiness takes a different shape in this setting.
AB - Does distance still matter? Reporting on a comparative analysis of four ethnographic studies of global software development, this article analyzes the fundamental aspects of distance as depicted in the famous paper "Distance Matters." The results suggest that, although while common ground, collaboration readiness, and organizational management are still important aspects for distributed collaboration, the arguments concerning coupling of work and collaboration technology readiness need to be refined. We argue that in working remotely, closely coupled work tasks encourage remote workers to spend the extra effort required in articulation of work to make the collaboration function. Also we find that people in distributed software development have already made collaborative technologies part of their work, and individuals are comfortable with them; thus, collaboration technology readiness takes a different shape in this setting.
KW - Closely coupled work
KW - Collaboration readiness
KW - Collaboration technology readiness
KW - Common ground
KW - Coupling of work
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84914158540&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1145/2670534
DO - 10.1145/2670534
M3 - Journal article
AN - SCOPUS:84914158540
SN - 1073-0516
VL - 21
JO - ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction
JF - ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction
IS - 5
M1 - 27
ER -