Exploring computer supported collaborative coordination through social networks Szabolcs Feczak, Liaquat Hossain ⁎ Project Management Graduate Programme, The University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia article info abstract The performance of work groups and in particular geographically distributed ones is negatively affected by communication issues and task dependencies. Contemporary science suggests social link optimization apart from improving the technical aspects to address these issues. In our study, we focus on distributed coordination and project performance. Social network structure and coordination performance variables are described by our framework with regards to distributed coordination during bug fixing process. Based on the model and the literature reviewed, we propose two propositions—(i) the level of inter- connectedness has a negative relation with coordination performance; and (ii) centrality social network measures have positive relation with coordination performance variables. We use a sample of 415 Open Source Projects hosted on SourceForge.net. The results suggest that both propositions are correct. Furthermore, in the methods section implementation of an automated process is introduced to build graph definitions in adjacency matrix or NCOL format from thousands of forum threads. We describe the implementation of a novel method to plot sociograms in batch from hundreds of graph definitions automatically and calculate network centrality and density measures for all of them at the same time. Finally, we suggest the implications of this study to software development project management research. © 2011 Published by Elsevier Inc. Keywords: Social network analysis Centrality Distributed coordination 1. Introduction Team work can reduce to total time required to solve a problem or complete a job, it can also improve the quality of the out- come. In case of more than one participant, however, the work has to be organized, the final goal has to be broken down into smaller tasks so it can be allocated to specific members or smaller groups of the team. In order to work together, the members are required to have knowledge about tasks, schedules, each other, goals and strategies. To acquire this knowledge, referred as group awareness the actors have to spend extra time to communicate (Gutwin et al., 2004). Coordination theory provides a framework to examine these dependencies in case of multiple actors pursuing goals together. The theory further suggests that implementing dependency management strategies and improving the efficiency of the communication between the actors can reduce the work distribution overhead (Malone, 1988). Due to an increase in the complexity of problems people encounter, over time work distribution becomes more and more extensive breaking through organizational and geographic boundaries. Therefore, distributed nature of the work groups becomes common. This feature of a team however changes the scenario of co- ordination because team members may experience longer geographical, temporal and socio-cultural distances compared to members of single site groups. This distance can cause longer delays, more frequent misunderstandings and without face to face communication trust issues may arise leading to further coordination problems. Overall distributed teams face more chal- lenges to achieve high performance. In this paper, we suggest that analysis of social features and mapping social networks can Journal of High Technology Management Research 22 (2011) 121–140 ⁎ Corresponding author. Tel.: + 61 2 90369110; fax: + 61 2 9351 8642. E-mail address: Liaquat.hossain@sydney.edu.au (L. Hossain). 1047-8310/$ – see front matter © 2011 Published by Elsevier Inc. doi:10.1016/j.hitech.2011.09.005 Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Journal of High Technology Management Research