Modularity: objective or perceived? A case study of a R&D globally distributed team

Globally Distributed Teams are being increasingly used by organizations to carry out knowledge intensive work and are often engaged in the development of modular products and services. While modularity is always treated as a given property of products and services, the findings of our qualitative research conducted in a GDT in charge of developing a new software product suggest that team members develop different perceptions of modularity, that, in turn, are related to different perceptions of interactions and team configuration. These different perceptions bring about both positive and negative outcomes.