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Regardless of whether a project team is located in the same workplace or distributed around the world, trust remains an important element deemed necessary to facilitate knowledge sharing and collaborative work. At the same time, distribution across sites presents challenges to trust building that are not present among co-located teams. A further complicating factor in trust building among distributed teams is national culture. As we demonstrate, the impact of nationality can be increased when organizations put the distributed sites in a competitive frame. Using the Newell and Swan threefold typology of trust, this paper analyzes trust among IT work teams whose members are located at sites that are distributed in the United States, Ireland, and India. Our case analysis confirms the problematic nature of trust building among globally distributed teams. Specifically, we found that due to situational factors and sociopsychological dynamics an 'Us versus Them' attitude prevails among the distributed sites. This paper concludes that the traditional approaches used by organizations to address the challenges of global collaboration are insufficient and that trust building in an organizational setting requires project managers to actively work on relationship management to minimize the impact of an inter-group perspective.

In response to the growing proliferation of Business Process Management (BPM) in industry and the demand this creates for BPM expertise, universities across the globe are at various stages of incorporating knowledge and skills in their teaching offerings. However, there are still only a handful of institutions that offer specialized education in BPM in a systematic and in-depth manner. This article is based on a global educators' panel discussion held at the 2009 European Conference on Information Systems in Verona, Italy. The article presents the BPM programs of five universities from Australia, Europe, Africa, and North America, describing the BPM content covered, program and course structures, and challenges and lessons learned. The article also provides a comparative content analysis of BPM education programs illustrating a heterogeneous view of BPM. The examples presented demonstrate how different courses and programs can be developed to meet the educational goals of a university department, program, or school. This article contributes insights on how best to continuously sustain and reshape BPM education to ensure it remains dynamic, responsive, and sustainable in light of the evolving and ever-changing marketplace demands for BPM expertise.

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