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Global software development (GSD) projects use a variety of communication tools, such as teleconferences, email, and instant messaging to overcome the challenges caused by distribution. The use of different tools implies different communication needs and practices within the project. Media synchronicity theory (MST) breaks communication down into two processesconveyance of information and convergence of understandingand communication media capabilities into five: immediacy of feedback, parallelism, symbol variety, rehearsability, and reprocessability. According to MST, media capabilities differ in support for conveyance and convergence, and for good performance, there should be match between media capabilities and communication process needed in a given task. In this paper, we present our qualitative study on communication in GSD. We interviewed 79 individuals from 12 GSD projects. We discuss which communication tools were used and how. We analyze the tool use and articulated rationale for choosing the tools for various tasks in distributed software development based on the two communicative processes and five media properties suggested by MST. We found evidence supporting the applicability of MST as an aid in selecting communication tools for GSD projects.as participants had freedom to choose when to respond [18], and could help to maintain informal conversations between different sites of operation [13,19]. Schiller and Mandviwalla [20] have evaluated the MST [4] based on 10 criteria proposed by Shoemaker et al. [21] for the development of new social science theories. Schiller and Mandviwalla conclude that MST seems to be a suitable and powerful theory to analyze media choice in virtual teams, even though it is a new theory and thus lacking a larger body of empirical evidence supporting it [20].Empirical evidence supporting MST has been reported in earlier work. In a study consisting of undergraduate students, the differences between convergence and conveyance as communicative processes were identified in tasks related to decision-making [22]. Whereas many tasks involve both conveying information and converging on shared meanings, it was found that a single communication media is often unable to both convey information and converge knowledge [22]. As conveyance and convergence are ,as cognitive processes, largely different from each other, MST recommends the use of multiple communication media when performing a task [4].Further evidence supporting MST was reported in a study with four virtual software teams [23] and eight virtual teams working with educational services [24]. The results indicate that high synchronicity was preferred for tasks requiring convergence, whereas conveyance of information was effective with tools of low synchronicity [23,24]. It was also found that synchronous and asynchronous communication media augmented each other, as synchronous media was used as an information-rich communication channel and asynchronous media as a semantically rich channel [23].Earlier studies evaluating IM usin...
Global software development (GSD) projects use a variety of communication tools, such as teleconferences, email, and instant messaging to overcome the challenges caused by distribution. The use of different tools implies different communication needs and practices within the project. Media synchronicity theory (MST) breaks communication down into two processesconveyance of information and convergence of understandingand communication media capabilities into five: immediacy of feedback, parallelism, symbol variety, rehearsability, and reprocessability. According to MST, media capabilities differ in support for conveyance and convergence, and for good performance, there should be match between media capabilities and communication process needed in a given task. In this paper, we present our qualitative study on communication in GSD. We interviewed 79 individuals from 12 GSD projects. We discuss which communication tools were used and how. We analyze the tool use and articulated rationale for choosing the tools for various tasks in distributed software development based on the two communicative processes and five media properties suggested by MST. We found evidence supporting the applicability of MST as an aid in selecting communication tools for GSD projects.as participants had freedom to choose when to respond [18], and could help to maintain informal conversations between different sites of operation [13,19]. Schiller and Mandviwalla [20] have evaluated the MST [4] based on 10 criteria proposed by Shoemaker et al. [21] for the development of new social science theories. Schiller and Mandviwalla conclude that MST seems to be a suitable and powerful theory to analyze media choice in virtual teams, even though it is a new theory and thus lacking a larger body of empirical evidence supporting it [20].Empirical evidence supporting MST has been reported in earlier work. In a study consisting of undergraduate students, the differences between convergence and conveyance as communicative processes were identified in tasks related to decision-making [22]. Whereas many tasks involve both conveying information and converging on shared meanings, it was found that a single communication media is often unable to both convey information and converge knowledge [22]. As conveyance and convergence are ,as cognitive processes, largely different from each other, MST recommends the use of multiple communication media when performing a task [4].Further evidence supporting MST was reported in a study with four virtual software teams [23] and eight virtual teams working with educational services [24]. The results indicate that high synchronicity was preferred for tasks requiring convergence, whereas conveyance of information was effective with tools of low synchronicity [23,24]. It was also found that synchronous and asynchronous communication media augmented each other, as synchronous media was used as an information-rich communication channel and asynchronous media as a semantically rich channel [23].Earlier studies evaluating IM usin...
Instant Messaging (IM) has evolved into an important tool for collaborative work. It supports informal near-synchronous communication and fosters awareness of the online presence of one's communication partners. Like all awareness systems, IM runs into concerns regarding privacy. Drawing upon prior literature and exploratory interviews, we postulate a model that posits impression management as an underlying cause for privacy desires of IM users. We verify our hypotheses using linear structural modeling on data from a large online survey of IM users across the U.S. The model establishes that the desire for privacy in IM arises due to the desire for impression management (both directly, as well as indirectly through the desire for visibility of one's impression to oneself). Based on this model, we suggest that IM systems could support privacy needs of users better by providing them with more knowledge and control over aspects that affect their IM-conveyed impression on others (i.e., by making impression management functionality available). Specifically, to help convey and sustain appropriate impressions on IM contacts, IM systems should allow for increased visibility of one's actions to oneself, facilitate easy comparison of one's practices with those of others, and allow one to view oneself from the perspective of others and to make finer-grained adjustments to IM settings than is possible today.
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