Global software development teams: ethics and knowledge management

Business Ethics and Globalization

The stresses of knowledge transfer and knowledge management are especially prevalent in the software industry. The time and cost pressures of global software development amplify and make more challenging the issues of globalization affecting every high technology business today. The need for real-time process, system and knowledge management integration across globally-based development teams is critically important if software applications are to be launched on schedule and seen as relevant to rapidly changing computer user's needs (Gibbs, 2009). Compounding the data, knowledge and process management aspects of a globalized development strategy that many companies including Microsoft has long relied on (Cusumano, Selby, 1997) are the cultural constraints as well as defined by Hofstede as cultural dimensions (Hofstede, 1998). Simply put, the formation of a global development team is very difficult. Its complexity is compounded by the ethical considerations of sharing knowledge globally to ensure equality of opportunity for all geographies and all programmers, making sure ethnocentrism does not take hold (Tekleab, Quigley, Tesluk, 2009). The intent of this paper is to analyze how global software development teams can be formed to ensure the highest performance possible while also taking into account the ethical considerations of globalization.

Microsoft's Approach to Programming Team Development

Microsoft's legacy is based on small, tightly integrated software development teams that concentrate on solving highly complex and therefore difficult problems in close coordination with each other. This requires a more loosely defined organizational structure that gives those engineers with exceptional talent the freedom to grow professionally at their own pace while enriching others in their teams at the same time (Cusumano, Selby, 1997). Promotions and status within the Microsoft culture are more driven by expertise and knowledge than by seniority, which fuels a highly competitive environment in terms of new approaches to solving complex, difficult programming problems (Lysenko, 2006). As would be suspected, traditional approaches to creating teams that are from the more chain-of-command era do not work at all in the Microsoft environment, yet transformational leadership and leadership based on technical expertise leads to teams accomplishing exceptional amounts of work ahead of schedule as a result (Cusumano, Selby, 1997).

Transformational leadership within Microsoft is unique to the organization, as its culture highly values technological expertise, yet also has a sizeable bureaucracy within which to operate. The challenge in creating teams within Microsoft is to have team leaders who can continually manage to objectives while providing exceptionally strong technical expertise, while also mitigating or minimizing conflicts between team members altogether (Somech, Desivilya, Lidogoster, 2009). The role of team leader within Microsoft is considered to be one that requires exceptional levels of technical expertise and credibility as a result (Lysecki, 2006). There are also the generation gaps between and within teams across all of high technology (Birkinshaw, Crainer, 2008) with this being particularly evident in the Microsoft culture as well. That's why it is so critical that the culture continually adopt team dynamics that concentrate on expert power over any other, especially legitimate or position power (Humphreys, Pryor, Haden, Oyler, 2009). For Microsoft, the concentration on creating transformational leaders through the use of expert power also makes it possible to get entire teams more efficiently to accomplish shared goals (Mathieu, Rapp, 2009).

Summary

In developing high performance teams within high technology companies such as Microsoft, credibility and technical expertise, or expert power, are far more important than position power or legitimate power. The catalyst of what keeps these companies competitive is the extent to which they can continually grow new leaders who have a strong depth of technological ability, yet also have the ability to motivate through example. The globalization aspects of development teams can often fall into the trap of being ethnocentric in nature, with the majority of development going to staff in headquarters. Externally there is the challenge of managing products' pricing in foreign countries so they are competitive yet also ethically priced and not deliberately low-priced just to gain market share. Microsoft has the many challenges of managing global development teams ethically for their globally-based employees while also ensuring their pricing is ethical and not deliberately low to just drive smaller, less financially viable competitors from the market.