  This paper reports our extended analysis of the recent literature addressing
global software engineering (GSE), using a new Systematic Snapshot Mapping
(SSM) technique. The primary purpose of this work is to understand what issues
are being addressed and how research is being carried out in GSE -- and
comparatively, what work is not being conducted. We carried out the analysis in
two stages. In the first stage we analyzed 275 papers published between January
2011 and June 2012, and in the second stage we augmented our analysis by
considering a further 26 papers (from the 2013 International Conference on
Global Software Engineering (ICGSE'13). Our results reveal that, currently, GSE
studies are focused on management- and infrastructure-related factors, using
principally evaluative research approaches. Most of the studies are conducted
at the organizational level, mainly using methods such as interviews, surveys,
field studies and case studies. The USA, India and China are major players in
GSE, with USA-India collaborations being the most frequently studied, followed
by USA-China. While a considerable number of GSE-related studies have been
published since January 2011 they are currently quite narrowly focused, on
exploratory research and explanatory theories, and the critical research
paradigm has been untouched. An absence of formulative research,
experimentation and simulation, and a related focus on evaluative approaches,
all suggest that existing tools, methods and approaches from related fields are
being tested in the GSE context, even though these may not be inherently
applicable to the additional scale and complexity of GSE.
