determinants of stronggroupstrong performance in information systems.pdfVIP

Journal of Information Technology Education Volume 4, 2005 Group Performance in Information Systems Project Groups: An Empirical Study The authors acknowledge the research grant provided by the John Molson School of Business at Concordia University to support this study Bouchaib Bahli and Meral Demirbağ Büyükkurt John Molson School of Business, Concordia University Montreal, Quebec, Canada bbahli@jmsb.concordia.ca mbuyukkurt@jmsb.concordia.ca Executive Summary The importance of teamwork in Information Systems Development (ISD) practice and education has been acknowledged but not studied extensively to date. This paper tests a model of how groups participating in ISD projects perform and examines the relationships between some ante- cedents of this performance based on group research theory well established in the organizational behavior literature. Most modern organizations require individuals to work in teams to perform their tasks. Informa- tion systems development teams, advertising teams, and new product development teams are only a few examples from the business community. The group work environment creates challenges for the group members that may affect the group’s performance. The relevance and importance of group performance and its antecedents has been addressed in other areas of research: in Social Cognitive Theory (Bandura, 1997), and group related research theories (Festinger, Schachter, Back, 1950; Gibson, 1999; Salas, Rozell, Mullen, Driskell, 1999; Woodman Sherwood, 1980). The importance of group work is also recognized within IS practice (Gorla Lam, 2004; Sawyer, 2004) and IS education (Ford Morice 2003; Gackowski, 2003; Whatley, 2004) as or- ganizations look for ways to improve group performanc