An adaptive neuro-fuzzy approach to evaluation of team-level service climate in GSD projects

The offshore/on-site teams' service climate is one of the key predictors of attaining the global software development (GSD) project outcome from the software service outsourcing perspective. This study aims at proposing a comprehensive methodology for measuring offshore/on-site team-level service climate (TSC) in the context of the GSD project outcome. For the evaluation of TSC in GSD projects, synthesizing literature reviews, extensive investigations are taken into account and to extend our earlier works (Sangaiah and Thangavelu in Int Rev Comput Softw 7(5):2159-2172, 2012; Sangaiah and Thangavelu in Proceedings of the IEEE international conference on computer communication and informatics (ICCCI), 2013; Sangaiah and Thangavelu in Cent Eur J Eng 3(3):419-435, 2013; Sangaiah and Thangavelu in Aust J Basic Appl Sci 7(8):374-385, 2013). Therefore, consistent with earlier studies on IT service climate, we have classified TSC characteristics of offshore/on-site teams' into three main dimensions: managerial practices (deliver quality of service), global service climate (measure overall perceptions), and service leadership (goal setting, work planning, and coordination) which covers twenty-five offshore/on-site teams' service climate attributes. For evaluating the TSC, we have considered adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system, which is more suitable to find interrelationship between service climate criteria. Finally, this study empirically assesses with 338 experts in India to explore offshore/on-site team-level service climate and GSD project outcome relationship.