Brazil has been emerging as an offshore destination for offshore IT software and services. The country already had a strong domestic base of IT clients to global companies. One of the competitive factors is time zone location. Brazil has now positioned itself as easy for collaboration because of time zone overlap with its primary partners in North America and Europe. In this paper we examine whether time zone proximity is indeed an advantage for software development by conducting a country-level field study of the Brazilian IT industry using a cross section of firms. The results provide some support for the claims of proximity benefits. The Brazil-to-North dyads use moderate timeshifting that is perceived as comfortable and advantageous for both sides of these dyads. The voice coordination that the time overlap permits helps address coordination challenges and foster relationships. These and other practices relating to time zones are described in detail.

Brazil has been emerging as a destination for IT software and services. The country already had a strong domestic base of IT clients to global companies. One of the competitive factors is time zone location. Brazil has positioned itself as easy for collaboration because of time zone overlap with its primary partners in North America and Europe. In this paper we examine whether time zone proximity is an advantage for software development by conducting a country-level field study of the Brazilian IT industry using a cross section of firms. The results provide some support for the claims of proximity benefits. The Brazil-North dyads use moderate timeshifting that is perceived as comfortable for both sides. The voice coordination that the time overlap permits helps address coordination challenges and foster relationships. One company, in particular, practiced such intense time zone aligned collaboration using agile methods that we labeled this Real-time Simulated Co-location.

Electronic markets are ruled by price and reputation, and, at least in the case of Online Sourcing Markets (OSM), also by preference for providers the buyer already contracted with. OSM are online markets for software development. Adding Fukuyama's notion of a low trust culture, an argument is advanced why buyers in OSM may give absolute preference to providers with whom they had previous contracts, presenting a special case of neoclassical contracting. Examining all the transactions in one calendar year at a leading OSM supports this proposition. All it took to be given the tender was to be the only bidding provider with at least one successful previous contract with the buyer, rendering pricing and ratings immaterial to bid choice. Only when none of the bidding providers had previous successful projects with the buyer did pricing and rating affect bid choice. The proposition is also consistent with the buyers’ comments about their providers. Implications are discussed about how a low trust culture affects OSM behavior.

We often hear that global software engineering teams are affected by time differences. While there is considerable research on the difficulties of distance, culture and other dimensions, there has been little research that isolated the impact of just time differences. The research question that guides us is whether there are gradual differences across time zones that impact team performance. In this study we conducted a laboratory experiment with 42 dyadic teams. The teams were randomly assigned into 4 time zone overlap conditions: full overlap, 2/3 overlap, 1/3 overlap and no overlap. Using a fictional map task, we found that participants' perceptions of process are unrelated to actual objective performance measures of speed and accuracy. Consistent with our expectations, we found that a small time separation has no effect on accuracy, but that more time separation has a significant effect on accuracy. Also consistent with our expectations, we found that a small amount of time separation has a significant effect on production speed. However, contrary to our expectations, we found that further increases in partial overlap have less significant effects on speed, and when there is no overlap speed actually increases, albeit not significantly - a "U-shaped" effect.

It seems surprising that small firms engage in offshore outsourcing given that they lack the resources that large firms possess to overcome the difficulties involved. We examine these factors using transaction cost theory’s three stages: contact costs, contract costs, and control costs. Then, using our field data from small client firms (in the United States and the United Kingdom), intermediaries, and offshore vendors, we analyze the mitigation approaches that reduce transaction costs for small firms. We identify nine such approaches: three for client firms and six for suppliers. For the small client firm, they are liaisons of knowledge flows, gaining experience, and overcoming opportunism; and, for the service providers, they are onshore presence, reducing contact costs, simplifying contracting, providing control channels, expert intermediaries, and standardization of services.

Several dimensions of browsing are examined to find out: what browsing is and what cognitive processes are associated with it; whether there is a browsing strategy and, if so, whether there are any differences between how subject-area experts and novices browse; and how this knowledge can be applied to improve the design of hypertext systems. Two groups of students, subject-area experts and novices, were studied while browsing a Macintosh HyperCard application. Three browsing strategies were identified: (1) search-oriented browse: scanning and reviewing information relevant to a fixed task; (2) review-browse: scanning and reviewing interesting information in the presence of transient browse goals that represent changing tasks; and (3) scan-browse: scanning for interesting information without review. Most subjects used review-browse interspersed with search-oriented browse. Within this strategy, comparisons showed that experts browsed in more depth, and viewed information differently than did novices. Based on these findings, suggestions are made to hypertext developers.>