

The trend of globalization has been seen for several decades. Wider markets, the vicinity of the client, cheaper working force and wider IT-professional pools are driving software organizations to offshore software product development. As the result, the software engineering (SE) teams are distributed and multicultural. Differences in cultural backgrounds cause various issues which often stay unrecognized and unsolved for years in global organizations. The operation of software developing organizations is divided into SE processes, described in international standards such as ISO/IEC 15504. SE processes are impacted by cultural factors in global environment because software development relies heavily on the communication with the client and among the team members. The aim of this paper is to propose a tool for cultural sensitivity assessment in SE processes. Cultural sensitivity assessment model (CSAM) helps to identify cultural factors that impact the outcomes of the SE processes. The results of the cultural sensitivity identification in SE processes can be further benefited in cultural training, strategy planning or even software process improvement (SPI).