Software Integration Challenges for GSD Vendors: An Exploratory Study Using a Systematic Literature Review

The trend of software development has changed from local to global software development (GSD) due to advances in information and communication technologies (ICTs). Despite of the benefits gained from GSD, vendors also face challenges during the integration of components developed by global teams in isolation. The objective of the current study is to find out the list of critical challenges/barriers (CBs) that obstruct the integration process at any stage. To achieve the objective we conducted a systematic literature review (SLR) and extracted the data from 88 papers found in six digital libraries. A total of 16 barriers were found among which 10 barriers are ranked as CBs. Some of the top ranked barriers are “Lack of Communication”, “Lack of Proper Documentation”, “Lack of Compatibility” and “Architecture Mismatch”.