An Empirical Study on Managing Knowledge Transfer in Global Software Development

In a global software development project, knowledge transfer between a corporate headquarter and offshore development sites is considered to be important for effective software development. This article presents empirical research that investigates factors influencing knowledge transfer in global software development. The factors evaluated in this study are: 1) quality of communication infrastructure, 2) quality of partnership and 3) types of governance mechanism. Questionnaires were collected from offshore development sites in Mauritius. While the quality of both the partnership and communication infrastructure were found to be determinants to knowledge transfer, hierarchical governance had a negative impact on knowledge transfer. Although the results are similar to the previous studies done within an organizational boundary, implications of the results are far different due to the geographical distance among offshore locations. Future research is called for to investigate the relationships between governance type and knowledge transfer.