Coordinating Expertise in Software Development Teams
Abstract
Like all teams, knowledge teams must acquire and manage critical resources in order to accomplish their work. The most critical resource for knowledge teams is expertise, or specialized skills and knowledge, but the mere presence of expertise on a team is insufficient to produce high-quality work. Expertise must be managed and coordinated in order to leverage its potential. That is, teams must be able to manage their skill and knowledge interdependencies effectively through expertise coordination, which entails knowing where expertise is located, knowing where expertise is needed, and bringing needed expertise to bear. This study investigates the importance of expertise coordination through a cross-sectional investigation of 69 software development teams. The analysis reveals that expertise coordination shows a strong relationship with team performance that remains significant over and above team input characteristics, presence of expertise, and administrative coordination.
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Social capital helps to achieve coordinated and successful action in times of crisis.
“Social capital helps to achieve coordinated and successful action in times of crisis (Leana and van Buren 1999;Faraj and Sproull 2000;Gittell et al. 2006;McGuinness and Johnson 2014).”
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- Authors
- Faraj, S., & Sproull, L.
- Affiliations
- University of Maryland, College Park (US)
- New York University (US)
- ORCID
- Faraj, Samer
- Venue
- Management Science
- Published
- 2000-12
- Volume
- 46
- Issue
- 12
- Pages
- 1554-1568
- ISSN
- 0025-1909 (ISSN-L)
- 1526-5501
- OpenAlex
- W2148273052
- Cited by
- 1,689
- References
- 8
- Citations by year
- 2026: 32 · 2025: 29 · 2024: 49 · 2023: 37 · 2022: 53 · 2021: 94 · 2020: 65 · 2019: 66 · 2018: 91 · 2017: 82 · 2016: 72 · 2015: 98 · 2014: 95 · 2013: 92 · 2012: 104
- FWCI
- 21.95
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Management Science (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Team Dynamics and Performance
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › Software Engineering Techniques and Practices
- Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Strategy and Management › Innovation and Knowledge Management
- Keywords
- software development teams, knowledge teams, team performance, expertise management, administrative coordination
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