SEKE 2012 Proceedings - Knowledge Systems Institute

[9] but no validation is provided in this study. The study claims
that this tool facilitates communication and cooperation among
GSD team members by pr oviding them with a knowledge
exchange platform.
GSD teams require intensive communication and collaboration
for the development of trust. KMR is an easy way of managing
and sharing knowledge across the organization an d allowing
stakeholders to know when, how or by whom knowledge is
done. KMR thus help in i mproving the coordination and
trusting working relationship among team members[23, 26].
III. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Research question addressed in this study is
Q:How KMR helps in bui lding and maintaining trus t
among GSD team members?
In order to study the impact of KMR in building trust, we
have carried out a controlled experiment. The selected co ntext
of our experiment was an academ ic environment. We
conducted our study with two groups of students each
consisting of six members, these students belong to two
different universities located in Pakistan and China. The reason
for choosing the students from these two universities is due to
the fact that this was the firs t experiment that we carried out,
and the authors work at these universities. So, it was easy to
carry out experiment with these two universities inste ad of
others, due to regulations and difficulties involved in obtaining
permission. Moreover the variables of this choice were suitable
for our expe riment as we n eed two GSD tea ms where the
cultural, linguistic and tem poral difference is involved. E ach
group consists of three Pa kistani and three Chinese students.
Both groups had to complete the similar project of evaluating
and redesigning a website and the duration of the project was
three months for each group. All the students who participated
in this experiment were the student of BS computer science, so
the age and experience of the participants was almost same.
Existing wiki software was used as KMR after making few
modifications into it. The infor mation that students consider to
be important with respect to their remote colleagues were
added into this KMR so that th ey may know about their
colleagues. This KM repository provides a space to collaborate
and share projects, documents, messages, schedules, tasks and
contacts within the group and many other features that help in
project management and coordination.
However the access of this KMR was given to only one
group of students and not the other so that the im pact of KMR
in building trust may be studied. We use the nam e Group A
(just for ease of use) for the team who was using KMR and
Group B for the team who was not using KMR.
In order to m easure trust four indicator/measures of tr ust
were used ba sed on prior deconstruction of team trust in
literature [27]. We describe each measure briefly in turn
A. Propensity to trust
It is the willin gness of one or more person in a group to
trust others. Propensity to trust is affected by many factors like
team culture, lifestyle, experience, education etc. it’s a general
personality attribute that leads towards the general expectations
about the credibility and trustworthiness of other person which
remains stable across many situations. [28].
B. Perceived trustworthiness
It refers to the extent to w hich an individual expect others
to behave according to their commitments. It exists when the
team members behave according to the expectations of t heir
colleagues; they are loyal and honest with their tea m members
and no body takes advantage of the other [28].
C. Cooperative behaviors
It refers to the environm ent in which team members work
with collaboration, help others in difficult situations and share
their experiences and know ledge. A team with coope rative
behavior works efficiently towards a common goal.
D. Monitoring behavior
It refers to the extent to which team members monitor and
check the actions of their tea m mates. Literature argues that
monitoring is associated w ith lack of tr ust. This behavior
decrease the efficiency and perf ormance of the team so it
should be a voided especially in GSD team s where a huge
geographical distance is involved and m onitoring affects not
only trust and perform ance of GSD teams but it also causes
budget overrun[28].
Based on the above four m easures, literature was studied
and 28 ite ms were selected that were related to these four
measures of trust. These ite ms were checked by two
independent subject matter experts. These experts evaluated
these items according to the criteria of understandability, length
and redundancy. Few ite ms were discarded because of the
redundancy and some more items were added, so finally after
evaluation 21 items were selected. From these 21 ite ms; 6
items were related to the propensity to trust, 6 ite ms were
related to the perceived trustworthiness, 6 items were related to
the cooperative beha vior and 3 items were related to the
monitoring behaviors. From these four measures, the first three
measures propensity to trust, perceived trustworthiness and
cooperative behaviorwhich have a positive impact on trust
while the monitoring behaviorwhich have a negative impact on
trust. Using these 21 item s a questionna ire was prepa red.
Responses on the trust scales were given on a 5-point scaling
ranging from 5= “strongly agree” to 1= “strongly disagree”.
As trust takes time in building and as it changes with the
passage of tim e, so during the three months duration of the
project, Group A and Group B team members were asked to
fill in the questionnaire three ti mes each after the gap of one
month based on their m utual understanding about their tea m
mates. However, the strict c onfidentiality of their responses
was ensured before giving them a questionnaire. The six
Chinese students (three from Group A and three fr om Group
B) filled the questionnaire i n the presence offirst researc her
while the students in Pakistani University were asked to emai l
the questionnaire to the researcher.
IV. DATA COLLECTION AND RESULTS
After the completion of first questionnaire filling exercise,
12 questionnaires were received, six from each group A and B
respectively. An a ggregated questionnaire was prepared in
which against each question the total was calculated (where
132