Does distance still matter? Revisiting the CSCW fundamentals on distributed collaboration

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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.

Original languageEnglish
Article number27
JournalACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction
Volume21
Issue number5
Number of pages26
ISSN1073-0516
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Nov 2014
Externally publishedYes

    Research areas

  • Closely coupled work, Collaboration readiness, Collaboration technology readiness, Common ground, Coupling of work

ID: 225660465