Global offshoring of engineering project teams: trust asymmetries across cultural borders

Abstract

Offshoring represents a new way to organize engineering project work, enabling firms to leverage global cost differences and growing talent pools, particularly in emerging economies. How can such firms build trust across onshore and offshore sites when the project team members differ in cultural value systems and practices? How can resulting asymmetries in trust be managed? The literatures on virtual teams, trust, and culture highlight important differences when teams are largely operating in technology-mediated spaces vs. when they come together in face-to-face spaces. Our findings from ethnographic studies on global engineering projects suggest the need for high levels of trust, but project teams have few capabilities to meet this need. The conditions of project teams engender asymmetrical trust in cross cultural contexts. There is a paucity of work on global engineering project teams, asymmetrical trust, and trust repair in large complex global projects. The research opportunities remain ample.