research-article

Attending to implicit bias as a way to move beyond negative stereotyping in GSE

Authors:

Stina Matthiesen,

Pernille Bjørn,

Claus TrillingsgaardAuthors Info & Claims

ICGSE '20: Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Global Software Engineering

Pages 22 - 32

https://doi.org/10.1145/3372787.3390432

Published: 25 September 2020 Publication History

Abstract

Despite the prevalence of global software Engineering (GSE), many companies continuously struggle to collaborate across geographical distance, nationalities, and languages. Prior research documents how the use of national cultural differences as an argument for failed collaboration is common amongst people working in GSE, which has made IT companies blind to the fundamental challenges of GSE work emerging upon the conditions for the actual conduct of work and practices undertaken by human actors. Based on an interventionist ethnographic study conducted within a Danish IT company, we present the results of attending to implicit bias as an approach to combat pervasive practices that deploy static cultural narratives and negative stereotypes in GSE. We find that implicit bias is a useful grip for moving discussions beyond negative cultural rhetoric and to reconsider the actual and locally situated collaboration-related problems that exist within organizations involved in GSE.

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cover image ACM Conferences

ICGSE '20: Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Global Software Engineering

June 2020

147 pages

ISBN:9781450370936

DOI:10.1145/3372787

General Chair:
Paolo Tell
IT University of Copenhagen, Denmark
,
Program Chairs:
Igor Steinmacher
Northern Arizona University
,
Ricardo Britto
Ericsson, Blekinge Institue of Technology, Sweden

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Published: 25 September 2020

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ICGSE '20: 15th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Global Software Engineering

June 26 - 28, 2020

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Matthiesen SBjørn PTrillingsgaard C(2023)Implicit bias and negative stereotyping in global software development and why it is time to move on!Journal of Software: Evolution and Process10.1002/smr.243535:5Online publication date: 25-Apr-2023
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