Leadership Roles and Communication Issues in Partially Distributed Emergency Response Software Development Teams: A Pilot Study

Emergencies often require inter-organizational and/or international coordination for effective planning and response. Therefore, planning and response teams are often configured as partially distributed teams. A partially distributed team (PDT) is a virtual team, in which some sub-groups are collocated, yet the subgroups are dispersed from each other, and communication between them is primarily by electronic media. We describe a project investigating different configurations of group and sub-group distribution and leadership in global PDTs engaged in tasks related to emergency response; in this paper we focus on results related to the leadership configuration (each of two subgroups in a team chose a local leader) and communication issues. Analysis of pilot data has helped us to articulate key leadership roles and suggests that significant in-group/out-group divides occurred. Implications for practitioners and future research plans are discussed.