Exploring Work-Life Conflict in Global Software Development (GSD) Contexts: A Survey of IT Professionals based in India

Global Software Development (GSD) is now a mega-trend. While there is a rich literature exploring various facets of the GSD phenomenon, few (if any) studies have focused on the working conditions of IT professionals, specifically their work-life conflict. In this paper, we discuss our research-in-progress on this issue, wherein we empirically examine the effects of four categories of relevant antecedents (individual factors, organizational factors, IS project-based factors, and the nature of personnel distribution in teams) on work-life conflict, and the effect of work-life conflict on outcome variables such as organizational commitment and individual’s performance. Analysis of data collected as part of an on-going study show that the measurement instruments are valid and reliable, and many of the hypothesized relationships hold. The aspiration of this study is to be among the first to empirically examine work-life conflict (WLC) issues in a GSD setting.