Towards an understanding of team dynamics in very small enterprises: an exploratory study in software development firms
O'Connor, RoryORCID: 0000-0001-9253-0313
(2016)
Towards an understanding of team dynamics in very small enterprises: an exploratory study in software development firms.
In: Meir, Russ, (ed.)
Quantitative Multidisciplinary Approaches in Human Capital and Asset Management.
Business Science Reference
.
IGI Global, Hershey, PA:, pp. 42-64.
ISBN 9781466696525
Given that it is relatively noncontroversial to claim that human capital, both in terms of education and
experience, is associated with superior firm performance, this can be extended to say that having the
requisite human capital in terms of software development staff is highly important for software development
project success. However, translating into actual corporate benefits implies an understanding of
the range of human capital issues in organizations. The present study examines one such range of issues
with a focus on the dynamics of teams, where team dynamics is taken as a general term to denote the
nature, quality and quantity of interactions among a firms human capital at the team level. Specifically
we refer to collaborative dynamics among human capital team resources to indicate the extent to which
valuable information is shared, levels of engagement, the existence of a collective sense of awareness
and the ability to learn from one another. The results of a study of a series of very small software development
firms are presented to ground this study in industrial practice.