CHALLENGES OF

INTERCULTURAL
PROJECT MANAGMENT
General, Virtual and Onsite

SUMMER 2017
Dr. Pro. Chainani Barta

Hochschule Fulda
 INTRODUCTION

During the past decade effective project management has become a desired skill that
every organization is seeking in people. Projects are now more complex and dispersed
among different countries and their successful operation is the key for the organizations
and their businesses.
As this is the era of globalization and the market is very competitive, project managers
need to be able to understand the sophistications in the problems and come up with ways
of solving them within the scope and limitation of the projects. They are the people that
need to be smart enough to devise problems into sub problems and use all the members in
the project team according to their area of expertise and bring the best outcome from
them.

Virtual project management is the system by which virtual teams collaborate for a
finite period of time toward a specific goal. A virtual team is a small temporary group of
geographically, organizationally and/or time dispersed knowledge workers who
coordinate their work with communication technologies in order to accomplish one or
more organization tasks. The virtual teams entail a large set of benefits, such as access to
talent, focused virtual knowledge base, reduction of international investment and lower
labor costs and on the other hand virtual teams also pose variant challenges like
motivation, geographical and cultural differences.

High tech firms increasingly form projects composed of team members with
different cultural backgrounds to respond to their customers’ needs. Prior studies have
regarded multicultural projects as an important instrument for developing products, yet
little effort has been investigated on the issue of onsite projects. This study aims to fulfill
the gaps in onsite project management and multicultural teams. In particular, it examines
the features of project management and challenges mediated by the teamwork processes
and moderated by the different backgrounds of team members represented by their
cultural values. Chapter 5 of this paper dedicated to features of onsite projects
management with multicultural teams: the chapter commences with the concept of a
project management and collocated team definition and proceeds to the major aspects of
traditional teams on the basis of challenges.

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 Table of Contents
Hochschule Fulda .............................................................................................................................
INTRODUCTION.......................................................................................................................... I
INTERCULTURAL PROJECT MANAGEMENT .................................................................... 1
Chapter 1: Intercultural Project Management in General and in Bangladesh ............................ 2
1.1 Background: ....................................................................................................................... 2
1.2 Objective of the study: ....................................................................................................... 2
1.3 Methodology:..................................................................................................................... 2
1.4 Data collection methodology: ............................................................................................ 3
1.5 Primary data:...................................................................................................................... 3
1.6 Secondary data: ................................................................................................................. 3
1.7 Limitation of the study: ...................................................................................................... 5
1.8 Questionnaire: ................................................................................................................... 5
Chapter 2: Background Theory .................................................................................................... 8
2.1 What is a project? .............................................................................................................. 8
2.2 Who is a project manager? ................................................................................................ 9
2.3 What is project management? .......................................................................................... 9
2.4 Project life cycle: .............................................................................................................. 10
2.5 Project management activities: ....................................................................................... 10
2.6 Project management methodologies: ............................................................................. 10
Chapter 3: Data Analysis ............................................................................................................ 11
3.1 Exploratory Data Analysis (EDA): ..................................................................................... 11
3.2 Deriving the main findings: .............................................................................................. 11
3.3 Findings from the interview: ............................................................................................ 13
Chapter 4: Reflection ................................................................................................................. 15
4.1 Summary: ......................................................................................................................... 15
4.2 Next steps: ....................................................................................................................... 15
INTERCULTURAL VIRTUAL PROJECT MANAGEMENT ................................................ 1
Chapter 5: Virtual Project Management...................................................................................... 2
5.1 Background Area - Going Virtual........................................................................................ 2
5.2 Virtual Project Management.............................................................................................. 2
5.3 Virtual Teams ..................................................................................................................... 3
5.4 Intercultural Virtual Projects.............................................................................................. 3
5.5 Challenges in Intercultural Virtual Projects ....................................................................... 3
Chapter 6: Theory and Literature Review .................................................................................... 4

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 6.1 Virtual Projects and Teams ................................................................................................ 4
6.2 Challenges in Virtual Projects ............................................................................................ 4
6.3 Motivation in Virtual Projects ............................................................................................ 5
Chapter 7: Methodology and Analysis ......................................................................................... 5
7.1 Data Collection with Google Forms ................................................................................... 5
7.2 Data and Analysis ............................................................................................................... 5
Chapter 8: Observation and Conclusion ...................................................................................... 9
8.1 Observation on the Analysis .............................................................................................. 9
8.2 Conclusion .......................................................................................................................... 9
INTERCULTURAL ONSITE PROJECT MANAGEMENT .................................................. 11
Chapter 9: Challenges of Intercultural Onsite Projects ............................................................. 12
9.1 Background ...................................................................................................................... 12
9.2 Objectives......................................................................................................................... 12
9.3 Survey Method ................................................................................................................. 13
9.4 Analysis and Results ......................................................................................................... 13
9.4.1 Workplace ..................................................................................................................... 13
9.4.2 Multicultural as a key parameter .................................................................................. 15
9.4.3 Communication ............................................................................................................. 16
9.4.4 Recruitment .................................................................................................................. 17
9.4.5 Autonomy ..................................................................................................................... 18
9.5 Conclusion and recommendations .................................................................................. 19
9.5.1 Conclusion ..................................................................................................................... 19
9.5.2 Action point for future .................................................................................................. 19
Table of References ...................................................................................................................... 20

III
INTERCULTURAL PROJECT MANAGEMENT

Samiul Jahan
Matrikel-Nr: 647723
 Chapter 1: Intercultural Project Management in General and in
Bangladesh
1.1 Background:
As the usage of World Wide Web grew enormously in the past decade so did the number
of global development teams. Especially in the IT field, teams having members, for
example from Europe, US, Eastern European countries, Middle East, Philippines, South
Asia is a common scenario. The more the teams have cultural diversity the more
complexity is seen in managing projects. Although there are numbers of methods have
been developed in order to ensure the successful accomplishment of projects but the
performance of projects are highly influenced by Intercultural factors like language,
race, age, gender, religion, sexual preferences, beliefs, habits, etc. So, the analysis of
these factors is an essential task to gain and guarantee fruitful output.

Bangladesh has also become a stakeholder in the IT boom by creating conducive

environments, drawing attention of IT companies around the globe to invest in the
country. The country, with its huge underutilized man power (cheaper than India, China
and Malaysia) benefited from the growth of IT sector by providing a nationwide IT
infrastructure and skilled labor force. (0

Many companies have been managing projects from their Bangladesh offices and people
from different nationalities working on those projects. Addition to this, people of
Bangladesh has many cultural differences. They have different colloquial languages,
culture, food habit etc. in different parts of the country. All these matters play important
role in project management. This paper is to provide insights into cultural issues to keep
in mind in order to manage teams and projects effectively in Bangladesh. This will also
be useful for team leaders, managers, chief executive officers, chairmen, primarily the
decision makers; those who would like to create offices or teams in the country in future.

1.2 Objective of the study:

The major objective of this study is to analyze the intercultural issues of Project
Management in general as well as in the context of Bangladesh.

The specific objectives of this report are-

1) To provide insight about Project Management, its components and constraints

2) To find out the general and intercultural issues in Project Management.
3) To identify challenges and realities of intercultural Project Management in
Bangladesh.

1.3 Methodology:

For data collection, a software consultancy firm in Bangladesh has been chosen. The
company has been running for past 15 years and operating their Bangladesh office for last
10 years. Its main branch is in the United Kingdom and it also has an office in Germany.

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The company has over fifty employees in total and 30 of them are in Bangladesh. Its
business type is Information Consulting Services and annual revenue is seven million
dollars.
1.4 Data collection methodology:

Data collection have been done in the following two ways –

1) Survey
2) Interview

1.5 Primary data:

All employees including the managing director, country managers and executive
assistants have been provided with an online survey form to answer some carefully
selected questions.

1.6 Secondary data:

Some persons of the same company have been selected in order to be interviewed.
Questions were developed carefully and have been asked over internet through online
conference software, Skype.
Interview was taken to gain insights into their experience and get to know as to what they
think about issues regarding intercultural project management.
The following table lists the people who have been selected for the interview and the
rationale behind choosing them –

No. Person Rationale

1 Managing director. Main manager of the company works from
the UK office. Have three distributed teams.
Also a team of country managers, executive
assistants, office assistants etc. Have the
overall understanding and experience of
project management, especially in
intercultural context.
2 Country manager, Bangladesh Manages a local team of lead and other
developers, executive and office assistants.
Recruits people in Bangladesh, determines
salary, bonuses and yearly increments of
local employees. Reports to the managing
director on daily basis. Have first-hand
experience of building team in Bangladesh.
3 Executive assistant, UK and Both the executive assistants in Bangladesh
Bangladesh. report to managing director and the country
managers. Generates salary sheets and
inform individuals of different office related
information. Maintains organizational charts,
documents. Sends and replies to office

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 related emails to both the employees and
sometimes to clients regarding invoicing. As
they reply to employees’ email regarding
office related queries sometimes they have
to deal with angry employees regarding
issue with salary statements, their amounts.
Sometimes they also have to face angry
clients for invoicing related issues.
4 Team lead, UK. Works with Manages project teams in UK. Responsible
Bangladesh team over internet. for selecting who would work on which
Also works with the local team on project and ensuring the projects are done
day to day basis. successfully. As he works collaboratively
with the global teams, especially the
Bangladesh team, he is much aware of the
issues and challenges of projects also the
intercultural issues, especially dealing with
the Bangladesh team.
5 Team lead, Bangladesh. Works Responsible for supervising and managing
with the UK team over internet project teams in Bangladesh. Decides the
and the local Bangladesh team on project teams and members in Bangladesh
daily basis. office. So, he is aware of the cultural context
in Bangladesh as well as the challenges
faced while working with global teams. His
experience would be valuable for the study.
6 A developer in Bangladesh, who Works on local Bangladesh team and with
works over internet with overseas the global teams on projects. While working
teams and went to UK to work on- on-site in the UK he observed, first-hand, the
site with the UK team. cultural differences in both the teams. He
had to learn and adapt the working culture
and ethics of UK and has valuable input for
the study.
7 A developer in Germany, who Works on German team and with the other
works over internet with both the global teams. Has been to Bangladesh and
UK and Bangladesh team as well experienced huge cultural differences
overseas teams from clients between the first world and third world. He
(depends on the projects). He also had to learn and adapt with the teams on-site
has been to Bangladesh to train and gained a good experience working with
Bangladesh team and work on- the people on-site of different cultures and
site. completely different country. As mentioned
before, even in Bangladesh, there are many
cultural differences based on the different
regions of the country, so this broadens his
horizon and that experience would be useful
for the study.

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1.7 Limitation of the study:

There is always room for improvements and the study is no difference. It was not free
from limitations. These limitations are discussed briefly below:

1) Inadequacy of Data: One company was chosen as a sample. That means the
survey was done on only one company. It would have been good if it could be
done in several companies. As the issues have dealt in the context of Bangladesh
the only Bangladeshi company I am acquainted with was chosen for the survey.
2) Limitation of Time: The time available was not enough to conduct the survey on
many companies. That hindered the quality of the survey.

1.8 Questionnaire:

The questions that have been asked by online survey are given below –

No. Question Question Type Options

1 Your role in the Checkbox (Multiple 1) Manager
company answers can be 2) Supervisor
selected) 3) Project Manager
4) Programmer/Developer/Executive
5) Student/Working Student
2 Your role in the Checkbox (Multiple 1) Project Manager
project you are answers can be 2) Lead Developer
currently involved selected) 3) Programmer/Developer/Executive
in 4) Tester
5) Advisor
3 How many people Short text Blank text box
are in the team?
4 Are your teams Yes/No 1) Yes
multicultural? (i.e 2) No
people from
different cultural
background are
involved in the
team)
5 Do you prefer a Yes/No 1) Yes
culturally diverse 2) No
team?
6 Why so? (i.e if you Long text Blank text box
prefer intercultural
project team why /

5
 if you do not prefer,
why)
7 What project Multiple choice (One 1) Virtual
environment are answer can be 2) On site
you currently selected) 3) Both
involved in?
8 Which project Multiple choice (One 1) Virtual
environment do you answer can be 2) On site
prefer? selected) 3) Both

9 Are you involved in Yes/No 1) Yes

multiple projects at 2) No
the same time?
10 What you do think? Checkbox (Multiple 1) Lack of Planning
What goes wrong in answers can be 2) Poor User Input (& Mismatch of
projects? Check 3 selected) Expectations)
3) Lack of Senior
Management/Executive Support
4) Poor Definition of Project Scope
5) Unrealistic Timescales
6) Lack of adequate Resources
7) Incomplete or Changing
Requirements
8) Lack of Leadership and/or
Communication Skills
9) Lack of Project Specific
Skills/Competence
11 What are the major Checkbox (Multiple 1) Management
contributors to poor answers can be 2) Requirements
project selected) 3) Systems Engineering
performance? 4) Reliability
5) Schedule
6) Test Planning
7) Software (Architecture,
Design/development discipline,
skill levels)
8) Maintainability
12 What are the top Checkbox (Multiple 1) Project Mission
success factors? answers can be 2) Top Management Support
Check 3. selected) 3) Project Schedule/Plan
4) Client Consultation
5) Personnel
6) Technical Tasks
7) Client Acceptance
8) Monitoring and Feedback
9) Communication
13 What are the top Checkbox (Multiple 1) Communication
challenges of answers can be 2) Integration

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 working on a selected) 3) Team motivation
culturally diverse 4) Difference in understanding of
team? Check 3. work etiquette
5) Resistance to change
6) Building trust
14 Would you like to Yes/No
see yourself as a
project manager?
15 Why so? (i.e if you Long text
would like to be a
project manager,
why / if you do not
want to be a project
manager, why)
16 Which PM process Multiple choice (One 1) Traditional Waterfall Process
do you prefer? answer can be 2) Agile Project Management
selected) Process
3) Depends on the project
17 What do you think? Yes/No
Project
management
training pays off?
18 Comments (your Long text
overall experience
in projects, your
suggestions on how
to improve project
performance etc.)

The questions that have been asked by interview are given below –

No. Question
1 What is you role in the team/company?
2 How long have you been working here?
3 How your day to day works affect others in your team/company?
4 Is your team/company culturally diverse?
5 Are they from different nations or from different cultures within the same
country?
6 Do you have issues working with your team? What types of issues?
7 Do you find yourselves always motivated working with your team?
8 Are you able to motivate your team?
9 Are you comfortable enough going to superior or subordinate with any sort of
issues?
10 What challenges do you face while working with your diverse team?
11 What will you recommend the project managers to manage a culturally diverse
team?
12 Tell about your overall experience working with people from other culture.

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 Chapter 2: Background Theory

2.1 What is a project?

A project is a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service or

result. (0
If one organizes a large party or event, this is called a project. Because it is a specific
party, for a specific reason, it is held on a specific date and time. That means it is unique,
temporary and has a defined beginning and end created a specific product or service.
At work, if an office is moved, it is most likely being handled as a project.
If one company decides to hire new virtual employees, the whole hiring process can be
handled as a project.
Everyday operations, is not a project. Washing clothes is not a project.
When a project is executed, certain constraints are faced by the project team. A
constraint is a factor that might imply some restrictions on a project and define its
limitations. It defines the what, how and when of a project.
For example, if a party is to be arranged, and if it has to be occurred on a certain date,
that is constraint.
If new software has to be developed for a company, it has to be developed within a
certain date and it has a limited budget. These are constraints of the project. A project
manager has to ensure the overall management of the project by overseeing and using
their knowledge and skills along with right project management tools and techniques,
bearing the constraints in mind.
The formal definition of “constraint” is: “The state, quality, or sense of being restricted to
a given course of action or inaction. An applicable restriction or limitation, either internal
or external to a project, which will affect the performance of the project or a process”. (0

The three most significant project constraints - schedule, cost and scope are known as the
project management triangle or the triple constraint.

When one is changed, it affects one or both of the others.

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2.2 Who is a project manager?
Project managers are organized, passionate and goal-oriented who understand what
projects have in common, and their strategic role in how organizations succeed, learn and
change.
While managing the trade-offs, the project manager (PM) is expected to integrate all
aspects of
The project, ensure that the proper knowledge and resources are available when and
where needed, and above all, ensure that the expected results are produced in a timely,
cost-effective manner. (Error! Reference source not found.

As a summary, a project manager is supposed to have the following skills -

1) Leadership skills - key element of a successful project, PMs have to be people
person
2) Technical skills - ability to decompose complex problems into sub problems and
solve them
3) PM process skills - the whole project management process, how to start and
manage and control the project

And a project manager has the following roles –

1) Working with people in the project
2) Gather different technical expertise required for and integrate into the project
3) Looking at the overall picture of the project, and divide the whole problem in
smaller components and assign people to appropriate tasks
4) Dealing with stakeholders in the project

2.3 What is project management?

One of the early attempts of defining project management says -

Project Management is the application of a collection of tools and techniques (such as the
CPM and matrix organization) to direct the use of diverse resources toward the
accomplishment of a unique, complex, one-time task within time, cost and quality
constraints. Each task requires a particular mix of these tools and techniques structured to
fit the task environment and life cycle (from conception to completion) of the task.
The project management institute (PMI) defines,
Project management is the application of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to
project activities to meet the project requirements. It is accomplished through the use of
processes such as initiating, planning, executing, controlling and closing. (Error!
Reference source not found.
Project Management provides an organization with powerful tools that improves its
ability to plan, control, implement and control its activities as well as the ways in which it
utilizes its people and resources. (0
The British Standard for project management BS6079, 1996 defined project management
as:
The planning, monitoring and control of all aspects of a project and the motivation of all
those involved in it to achieve the project objectives on time and to the specified cost,
quality and performance.

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2.4 Project life cycle:

A typical project goes through different processes. According to PMBOK, there are
phases of a project. These are –

1) Initiation – in this phase the project need and objective is identified. Requirement
from the client is analyzed and, a feasibility study is conducted, to develop a new
product or modify an existing one.
2) Planning – planning for the project is made and the milestones are set in this
phase. The risk assessment is done as well.
3) Execution – in this phase the project plan is put into motion. Project manager and
project team spend most of the time in this phase.
4) Monitoring and controlling – The project is controlled and monitored in order to
guarantee a successful delivery. Corrective actions are taken if necessary.
5) Closing – this is the final phase of a project and the final product is delivered for
live operations. The documents are also delivered with the product.

2.5 Project management activities:

Primarily, there are three key activities of a project, namely, Planning, Scheduling and
Controlling.
1) Planning – Planning activities include defining project activities, planning
resources etc.
2) Scheduling – Development of detailed planning, milestones etc. are included in
scheduling activity.
3) Controlling – controlling and measuring the project progress, mitigate issues are
controlling activities.

2.6 Project management methodologies:

There are many project management methodologies that have been developed in order to
provide frameworks for planning, managing, controlling and delivery of projects
successfully. Some of them are mentioned below -
1) Traditional waterfall method – In waterfall method, a project has to be completed
once all of the requirements are developed and the project has come to an end
completing all the phases. Once the requirements are fixed, there is no way to
make any change that might appear needed over time. It is a rigid method.
2) Agile project management method – In agile method, a project can be delivered in
iterations. The project starts from a firm foundation and delivers small chunks of
it and takes feedback from the customer. As the whole project is delivered in
iterations, it allows the facility to incorporate changes in requirements. It is a quite
flexible method.

3) PRINCE2 – It is a process-driven project management method that focuses on

high-level activities, such as management, organization and control — but not

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 lower level activities, such as work breakdown or scheduling. It is based on seven
principles, seven themes and seven processes. (0
4) Rapid Application Method (RAD) – It is a method with rapid prototyping and
iterative model with no specific planning involved. This methodology put more
emphasis on process and less importance in planning. The main aim is to develop
project at a faster pace. It follows iterative and incremental process.

Chapter 3: Data Analysis

3.1 Exploratory Data Analysis (EDA):

The questions for the online survey were created via an online tool and an email was sent
with the link of the survey to all the members who participated in it. Survey was available
online for 15 days so that everyone can fill it in their spare time. The total time for filling
the form was estimated 15 minutes.
During these 15 days, we were looking at the form and we went through the excel file
that was recording all the responses from the survey tool. We were going through
responses from each individual. While doing so, it has been realized that one question
needed to be added in the survey form. Question number 13 was added and all the
members were informed of the update on the survey form and people were asked kindly
to fill up the form again and thanks to their courtesy they did so.

3.2 Deriving the main findings:

After the deadline was passed, the excel file was downloaded and used to generate
summary from the data. Excel graphical tool was used to create graphs and charts. In
total, 45 persons (90 percent of the people) responded to the survey.
The summary of the findings are discussed below –
1) 50% of the people who responded are developers or executives, 17% of them are
managers, project managers or supervisors, rest of them are working students
2) 83% of them are developers/executive in the project they are currently involved in
and 17% of them are lead developers
3) Majority of them (67%) work in a team of 5 persons
4) And majority work in on-site projects (50%), whereas 33% are from virtual teams
and rest (17%) work on both types of teams
5) 67% of the people like both types of working environment, on the contrary, 17%
prefer virtual environment and 17% would prefer onsite environment.
6) 50% of them work on multiple projects (more than) at the same time and 50% of
them work only on one project at a time.
7) Half of the people believe that the main thing that goes wrong in projects is lack
of leadership and / or communication skills (50%). Then come the issue of
incomplete or change in requirements (33%) and lack of project specific skills /
competence.
8) Half the people (50%) also believe that proper test planning is the major
contributor to poor project performance whereas 33% voted for lack of proper

11
 leadership and rest thinks it is the overall system engineering that is the main
reason behind poor performance of projects.
9) Majority of the population (66%) believe communication is the top success factor
while rest of them voted for project mission (33%) and top management support
(17%).
10) Then we asked them whether they would like to see themselves as a project
manager in future. Majority of them (83%) said yes they would like to be a
project manager someday.
11) They also provided reason as to why they would like become so. Some said, they
want to apply their experience with projects, lessons from past failures in order to
succeed in project delivery. Some simply said they believe they can do it. Those
who do not want to be a project manager in future, one of them said, lack of
experience as a developer makes it unrealistic to become a project manager. That
means, they want to gain a lot of experience as a developer first. In essence, they
think experience bring success.
12) As we mentioned before that there many project management methodologies we
also asked people which methodology they prefer. We only mentioned the
traditional waterfall and agile project management. Majority people (66%) prefer
agile project management over the traditional sequential method (20%) and the
rest (14%) think that it depends of the project.
13) 83% of the people working have a culturally diverse team whereas 17% of them
do not work in team with people from different culture.
14) And 83% of them said that they prefer a team that is diverse in culture and 17% of
them do not prefer teams with cultural diversity.
15) Those who prefer diversity in team, they mentioned two reason for their
preference –
a. Relations in such teams build on professionalism and makes it easy to
address issues
b. Every culture has its own Strengths (S) and weaknesses (W). And they
believe diversity helps teams to maximize S and minimize W.
16) On the other hand, people who do not prefer working in a diverse team mentioned
the following issue –
a. Different cultures bring problems
17) Majority of the people (66%) think that the top challenge of working on a
culturally diverse team is the communication, whereas 20% believe team
motivation is a major challenge. Some (10%) find it hard to build trust in the team
and rest (10%) think integration is a key problem.
18) Then there was a question that asked what people think about project management
training. Do the trainings pay off? All of them (100%) said yes, project
management trainings pay off. That means even the top management think that
arraigning trainings has advantages and help to have more productive team.
19) Finally, there was a blank text box that asked people to tell about their overall
experience and suggestions on how to improve project performance. Only one
person responded to the question. I think this is due to the fact that everyone had a
lot of thing to share and they thought it will take them time to write in the online
survey form. So, ignoring the question was convenient for them. I think this is one
of the disadvantages of doing a survey. Some questions could be ignored by

12
 people. Face to face interview is helpful in this case. However, who responded to
question believe –
a. Project success is guaranteed by motivation and professionalism of team
members. Everyone must be willing to communicate and contribute
towards same goals despite their differences.

3.3 Findings from the interview:

As mentioned earlier, the interview was taken through internet by Skype. In total 7
persons were interviewed and each interview took 15 minutes or more in some cases.
There were different dates for every individual and every session was recorded through a
digital media recorder. After that, points were noted from the audios, collated and
summarized.
The summary drawn from the interview are discussed below –
1) When establishing a company what comes first is the name of the company. By
that people recognize a company and it is the brand. In Bangladesh, it has been
noticed that people value and respect company which has English names. It could
be a name of a river, city, a direction (east, west, north etc.) or any English name.
People also tend to trust foreign companies instead of local companies. Local
small organizations try to utilize this mindset of people in their advantage and use
such names. In addition to this, as Bangladesh was once a colony of British
Empire so the colonial mindset is everywhere. Government job has the highest
esteem and respect because it has stability. After government job, foreign
company offshoring from Bangladesh are regarded as stable.
2) After establishing comes hiring people. Managers, mainly the managing director
and country managers said that it is a hard job to establish a team right for the job
with the right attitude. For this, recruiting is a crucial part of brining right people
with the right mindset. There are cultural differences, in countries, even as to how
recruitment works. For example, British never send picture with their CVs
whereas it is quite opposite in Germany. People do not mind sending picture with
CV and same culture is seen in Bangladesh. So for recruitment it is important to
adopt a strategy that is compatible with the local culture. They also said that as
Bangladesh has many cultural differences in the different parts of the country they
also want to hire people from cultures within the country. They see it one form of
training and they believe it broadens individuals’ horizons.
3) In terms of wearing dresses in work environment, the more a work environment is
polished, disciplined, people come to work wearing the formal dresses, the more
respect that work environment has.
4) Religion play an important role in the daily lives of people in Bangladesh and it is
crucial to realize and respect to understand the team. People like to get good
bonuses during the holy festivals, which happen twice a year. It motivates them a
lot and brings happiness and joy to the team. People do not mind getting no or
little performance bonuses but during the holy festivals it is a must. Even non-
Muslims also like to get bonus during that time.
During the month of Ramadan, people fast from dawn to dusk. Fasting means no
food, not even drinks. People tend to get angry easily during this time. It is
important to understand these so team members speak softly and calmly with each

13
 other and even if someone gets angry they try not to react. Specially, managers,
supervisors, team leads should be aware of this issue.
Many people pray five times a day. So, it may happen that there is an important
meeting ongoing and someone might want everyone else to excuse them for five
or ten minutes. It should not be considered as an insult or a bad manner because
the person who is seeking for it does not want to miss the prayer. Meeting
conductors, team members should understand and respect individuals’ inclination
toward religion. It also makes them happy with their superiors and team members.
While in conferences or abroad for projects, Bangladeshi people might encounter
culture shock for example, drinking of alcohol. It is better not to offer them any
alcohol because it is not their culture as well as prohibited by their religion. They
might take an offense.
5) There is respect for everyone, especially for the elders. People do not call their
senior colleagues by their names. It is considered as an offence. People usually
call their seniors as ‘brothers’ or ‘boss’ or ‘sir’.
6) People are generous and love to feed others. One person who came to train and
work on-site with the Bangladesh team from Germany mentioned that this
something he did not expect. He was invited by many in their houses for dinners
and lunches. People also feed him in restaurants and became offended when he
wanted to pay the bills.
7) The person who went to the UK from Bangladesh said that British people are
extremely polite and if they ask someone nicely ‘could you please do that for me
when you have time’ this simply means I want you to do it now. It is really
important to understand these little things in order to understand our team
members better.
He also mentioned ice breaking with the British people is easy. Anyone can start
speaking to a British people simply talking about the weather. British love
speaking about weather. British people have some different work ethics than the
Bangladesh and it is necessary to understand these differences.
8) People in Bangladesh are not too much professional. They do not argue over
salaries and tend not to switch companies rapidly. So, a lot less employee
turnover rate is seen in companies. If they like the company and environments
they do not want to switch if there are no overwhelming reasons. In some
countries, for example in India, there is a lot of employee turnover rate, 50%
which is alarming for global companies. Employees may switch companies for
mere increase of 200 dollars in salary. It is not the case in Bangladesh.
9) There are differences in weekdays and weekends in Bangladesh than many other
countries. Friday is weekend in Bangladesh as well as weekly prayer day. So,
asking people for working on Friday shall be considered as an offense. Project
manages or team leads that rely on people from Bangladesh team should plan and
divide work according to weekdays and weekends so that no emergency arises
and they do not need to call someone in Bangladesh to work on Friday. At the
same time, Sunday is weekday in Bangladesh whereas in most countries it is the
weekend and weekly prayer day. So, the managers and leads in Bangladesh
working with global teams should plan accordingly.
10) As there are differences in culture and languages within Bangladeshi people, it is
sometimes hard to mitigate risk of stereotyping, prejudices and racism. Not
everyone would be same and they might not communicate what issues they are

14
 facing within the team. This will lead to distrust and disintegration within the
team. Supervisors to sit with their subordinates on regular basis to find out where
their issues are, what they are working on, where they are in terms of career and
where they want to see themselves. Based on those, supervisors to resolve
individual issues and set goals and objectives and arrange relevant trainings for
them.
11) Companies are now adopting agile project management methodology than the
traditional waterfall method because this has been proven as useful. It ensures
delivery of products early, with increments and gets the early ROI (Return On
Investment). It is also beneficial for a culturally diverse team. An agile framework
called DSDM (Dynamic System Development Method) deals with the overall
management of projects and it provides a lot of guidance to strengthen
communication. DSDM’s emphasis on human interaction (e.g. through the use of
workshops), visualization (e.g. through the use of modeling, prototyping and
iterative development) and clearly defined roles is at the heart of excellent project
communication. These activities have been proven effective for a culturally
diverse team.

Chapter 4: Reflection

4.1 Summary:

The whole project helped me get to know many aspects of project management. It also
showed the cultural issues seen in general also in teams working from Bangladesh. It was
an eye opening project and people shared their experiences, opinion and also thanked for
conducting such a research. I really enjoyed working on this project, learned by doing
and it generated a lot of enthusiasm in my mindset.

4.2 Next steps:

In future, I would also like to conduct the same research collecting data from some other
companies. My aim would be to collect as many data as possible and use other statistical
tools to summarize and make sense from the data.

15
INTERCULTURAL VIRTUAL PROJECT MANAGEMENT

Imam Bux
Matrikel-Nr: 347704
 Chapter 5: Virtual Project Management
5.1 Background Area - Going Virtual
The phenomenal growth of mobile technologies, as well as the global adoption of the
Internet, have altered the way people access and share information. The division of
technical knowledge, brought about by cultural differences and inequalities that fragment
societies and the capacities of individuals, has been quickly overcome by a faster and
cheaper exchange of knowledge. This provides technological know-how to a wider range
of cultures and communities around the world, opening up the possibility of
incorporating international workforce with minimal expansion needs. Global markets
exceed nationalities and seek key advantages in terms of cost, quality and flexibility.
The virtual teams entail a large set of inherent benefits, such as increased pool capacity,
access to talent, long active shifts with dispersed teams, focused virtual knowledge base,
smaller sites, reduction of international investment and lower labor costs. Coming to
lower wage markets. From the perspective of team members involved in distance work,
there are a substantial number of recognized benefits and on the other hand virtual teams
also poses wide variety of challenges like geographical difference, motivation and
cultural differences.
A survey of more than 1,000 respondents created by Wrike, Inc. shows that the three
main benefits identified are time savings (41%), productivity increase (29%) and
opportunity to focus on work, instead of office politics (10%). On the other hand, the
main challenges identified by the respondents are lack of direct communication (38%),
difficulty accessing data (21%) and poor visibility of peer actions (19%). (Filev, 2013).
Project managers, regardless of the typology of the project, are not able to carry out their
work without the help of a project team and the proper evaluation of the stakeholders.
Therefore, an effective project manager must be able to calculate a balance between
technical, personal and conceptual skills, in order to help the manager to analyze and
interact properly.
5.2 Virtual Project Management
One of the most prevalent project management document is the Project Management
Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) edited by the Project Management Institute (PMI) defines
Project Management as “the application of knowledge, skills tools, and techniques to
project activities to meet project requirements.” (Project Management Institute (PMI),
2008)
Virtual project management is the system by which virtual teams collaborate for a finite
period of time toward a specific goal. There is a multiplicity of factors that may explain
the increasing adoption of virtual project management in the current international
workplace. The current increase in virtual projects and their economic importance within
the project management industry make it a convincing case to investigate the factors that
affect the success of the virtual team. This “Virtual Project Management” paper aims to

2
explore the characteristics of progress, motivation and challenges in intercultural virtual
environments.
5.3 Virtual Teams
Across literature there are multiple definitions of virtual teams. In the literature section
there is a wider definition. An introductory definition is the one that Ebraim (2009)
summarize from their own literary review:
“A virtual team is a small temporary groups of geographically,
organizationally and/or time dispersed knowledge workers who coordinate
their work predominantly with electronic information and communication
technologies in order to accomplish on e or more organization tasks.”
5.4 Intercultural Virtual Projects
Culture is a differentiating aspect that has usually been used to describe Diversity. In
each culture there is a specific capital of beliefs, ideas, values, myths and, above all, those
that unite a community. An individual from that community, when involved in the
working group of individuals from other communities to achieve the goal, forms the
Intercultural Project environment. If all individuals are not correlated and work at a
distance, they form the virtual intercultural project environment.
5.5 Challenges in Intercultural Virtual Projects
In the new virtual project environment, team members seldom share a common
workplace, rarely seen, perhaps never worked together before, and may never work
together again once the project is complete. In other words, when on-site project
management has to manage virtual teams, it becomes virtual project management.
Intercultural virtual projects face tougher challenges than onsite projects. It is harder to
manage the virtual teams to be successful than onsite teams. One of the reasons is the
difficulty to create the common environment for the people from the different culture
background and to foster motivation for the team as a whole, directly affected by the lack
of face-to-face interaction. The consequences of low motivation can be directly
connected to increased difficulty in monitoring the team performance, misunderstandings
and perceptions of isolation within projects.
The platform of virtual projects allows organizations to surpass the boundaries of
geographical distance, time zones, and cultural differences, however they are not
deprived of specific challenges. The four major areas in which the management of global
virtual teams face significant challenges: communication, culture, technology, and project
management.
With the rise of virtual projects, it is particularly important to adapt management and
leadership strategies to the new paradigm. Project management knowledge and
techniques need to be applied on virtual projects, however, reduced direct human
interaction, technical complexities and other characteristics require that project leaders of

3
virtual teams address various issues of enhanced difficulty when approaching
intercultural virtual environments.

Chapter 6: Theory and Literature Review

6.1 Virtual Projects and Teams
The virtual project is one in which the participants are geographically distributed to an
extent that they may seldom, meet face-to-face as a team.
A virtual team is a set of individuals who work independently working together to
provide business solutions. A virtual team will typically include members who work
primarily from home and may have a small, centralized meeting office and group
projects can be planned and executed.
Virtual teams reside within the interaction of three larger systems: people, processes and
technology. These are the components of virtual teams, and as such, need to be addressed
in order to have a successfully collaborating team.
As it has been shown, virtual teams main characteristic derives from the lack of physical
existence. The tasks, goals, or missions that they intend to accomplish do not introduce
necessary differential aspects, however, it is the way these tasks are accomplished, and
the unique constraints they face, that differentiate virtual teams from onsite ones.
6.2 Challenges in Virtual Projects
In a way, the most challenges identified relate to some of the special characteristics of
virtual teams. As it has been pointed out, space and time are some of main characteristics,
however, these factors have four main causes for concern: geography, culture,
organization, and social issues.
Geography, culture, organization and social issues offer serious challenges in all types of
projects, or even, any type of enterprise that has a wide-territory and that involves a
multiplicity of individuals. It is true, that virtual environments are affected more severely
from these challenges. Thus, the only truly challenge that is only present in virtual teams
that has not relation in on-side ones resides in the lack of face-to-face interaction.
However, trust, innovation, and leadership are challenges that exist in collocated teams,
as well. With this in mind and as a fitting broad summary of virtual team challenges. The
first challenge is precisely building trust within the team, which in virtual environment
stems on performance consistency, rather than social bonds. The second challenge is
maximizing process gains and minimizing process losses. The third challenge deals with
overcoming feelings of isolation and detachment associated with virtual teamwork. The
fourth challenge is balancing technical and interpersonal skill among virtual team
members, which links back to selecting the right individuals for specific virtual
environments, due to their technical skills rather than interpersonal skills.

4
6.3 Motivation in Virtual Projects
The fact that motivation is discussed separately because it is challenge and a solution at
the same time. Motivation is positively related to productivity, makes it an area worth to
be invested in. The two types of work factors influence motivation: hygiene factors and
motivation factors. Hygiene factors refer to the contextual features of the working
environment, such as salary, working conditions, interpersonal relations, etc. Motivation
factors refer to the characteristics of the work itself, such as sense of achievement,
responsibility, advancement and growth; in other words, progress.

Chapter 7: Methodology and Analysis

7.1 Data Collection with Google Forms
The google form interviews are the main data sources for this paper. The interviews
consist of a series of multiple choice, mandatory, optional questions followed by some
description questions that aim for an extended reply or clarification. The questions are
divided in different categories which at the same time can be focused into three main
blocks: background and experience of the respondent, virtual projects, motivation and
culture.
7.2 Data and Analysis
7.2.1 Virtual Environments
ADVANTAGES DISADVANTAGES TIME ZONES FACE TO FACE

The challenge of Language barriers. It's not a Depends on

meeting new cultures Making everybody problem. It's a projects.
Respondent 1 and establishing new understand what challenge that
relationships. Travel. needs to be done. can easily be
bridged.
Flexibility in working Not being able to Not a problem. Normally there's
schedule. physically interact no face to face
Respondent 2
with people. interaction nor
meetings.
Access to talent, Scheduling It's not a Depends on the
flexibility of working everybody is difficult. problem. project.
Respondent 3
hours, higher
productivity.
More flexibility. Higher It's hard to keep up It's not a It's important to do
productivity as you can with the progress of problem. it as much as you
Respondent 4 work with the best team members. can.
talent in continuous
shifts.

Table 1 Virtual Environments

The category identified is the one regarding virtual environments and how the respondent
experiences their particular characteristics. This category shows interesting points that all

5
respondents seem to have experienced. Challenges, cultures, talent, focus are some of the
words that are mostly used. The time variable is a particularly interesting one, as several
respondents show the advantage of higher productivity due to the possibility of having
continuous shifts across the world in different time-zones.
7.2.2 Virtual Teams (Bruce Tuckman’s Model)
It is important to look into the key activities in the lifecycle of virtual team management.
While tradition team dynamics lifecycle stages are defined by Tuckman (1965) as
Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing, and later on Adjourning.
The first phase is Phase A: Preparations, where the mission of the project is developed,
team members are assigned, tasks are designed, rewards systems are defined, technology
is selected, and an organizational integration is planned.
Phase B: Launch starts with a Kick-off event, on which team members get acquainted,
the goals are explained and clarified, and a set of rules are set.
The third phase, Phase C: Performance Management revolves around leadership
regulation of communication, assessment of motivation and emotions, and knowledge
management.
Phase D: Team development is the fourth phase, and holds the assessment of needs and
deficits of the team. Individual and/or team training is conducted, as well as the
evaluation of the effects of the training.
Finally, Phase E: Re-integration of team members into the organization or other projects.
FORMING STORMING NORMING PERFORMING
Project team Team harmony and 90% of Knocking down
members vary positive peer communication barriers.
from project to pressure are happens via phone
Respondent 1 project. infectious. and conference
calls. Teams are
encouraged to
communicate.
Teams are mixed Teams are Communication is Aim for a very
with client and approached on done with email, open environment
team members. one- by-one basis. IM, phone. so that everyone
Respondent 2
can communicate
any direction they
want.
Project team Team dynamics Daily Skype Using the pyramid
members vary are difficult to get meetings with of communication.
from project to going. tasks assigned in Between face-to-
Respondent 3
project. meetings and face and email.
followed by
emails.

6
 Members are The stress lays in Communication is Use a team site
dispersed. the planning phase, constant with where people can
instead of email, instant share things or
Respondent 4
brainstorming. messaging and show their profiles.
Task oriented Skype.
approach.

Table 2 Virtual Teams (Tuckman’s Stages)

The categories chosen for this theme are taken directly from Tuckman's (1965) stages of
group development model (Tuckman, 1965). The patterns that emerge from the first
category are the way the teams are created. The teams are assembled normally by a multi-
organization approach with different (and sometimes conflicting) roles and goals, and
normally are delivered to the project managers already assembled.
The second category, since is symbolically linked to the storming stage deals with the
dynamics that teams follow when interpersonal challenges arise. The narratives of the
respondents are surprising when they try to think about this process. All respondents
mentioned that either they did not experience problems, or that the problems between
team members are negligible due to the limited interactions and the higher task oriented
nature of Virtual Project Management environment.
The third category, the norming stage defined by Tuchman, responds to the dynamics on
which virtual teams communicate or how tasks are assigned and delivered to the teams.
The fourth category of this theme, Performing, which relates more to the way the team
performs as a team, instead of the actual tasks and process produced and delivered by the
team.
7.2.3 Motivation in Intercultural Virtual Projects
The importance of motivation in Inter-cultural virtual projects is provided in two ways.
The first one in a scale from 0 (not important at all) to 10 (critically important). The
second one in relation to virtual projects. The responses show a very definite pattern. The
value of importance averages 7.75, which signifies a high importance of motivation in
virtual teams. However, almost all respondents clarified that the importance of
motivation is equal in any type of project, virtual or not. They all agree that fostering
motivation in virtual projects is particularly more challenging and difficult than in onsite
projects and specially motivation becomes quite challenging in intercultural environment.
INTER
IMPORTANCE CULUTRAL MOTIVATORS DEMOTIVATORS
ASPECTS

9 out of 10 With similar Important to set It's difficult to

cultures it's easy to goals together and maintain high
see if they're build relationships motivation if
Respondent 1
motivated. in the beginning. people fear for
Overseas is more their jobs.
difficult.

7
 7 out of 10 Being virtual is a Knocking down Big changes in the
challenge. Having Cultural barriers direction of
experience in the for the team. Focus projects.
Respondent 2
field is a big on communication
leverage point. and the good
things.
7 out of 10 The best way to Meaningful work. Bossing people
see if they're Listening to the around.
motivated is by team and the
Respondent 3
looking at the individuals.
completion of
objectives.
8 out of 10 It shows because Choosing the right Can't think of
people don't do personality for anything.
Respondent 4 what they have to. virtual projects.
Task driven people
will be motivated.

Table 3 Motivation in Inter-Cultural Virtual Projects

If motivation is important, how do managers see if the team is motivated or not. If the
individuals are doing their work, on time, and as requested, that is a sign of a motivated
individual. If the project continues its course and moves forward, if it progresses,
motivation should be high. In this case, it is not because of progress that team members
are motivated, it is because managers see progress that they assume the team members
are motivated. It is a little but important difference.
The last 2 categories try to capture the respondent’s experiences in regards of motivators
and demotivators within an inter-cultural virtual project. It is worth pointing out that
these factors are not necessarily different from those of onsite projects, as, for example,
the cultural difference is a well-known demotivators in any kind of working environment.
This category below is probably the most important of all, as provides a self-reflection
quality that puts in perspective the other answers.
7.2.4 Self-Motivation in Inter-Cultural Virtual Projects
WHAT MOTIVATES YOU IN INTERCULTURAL VIRTUAL PROJECT?

Diversity of projects and dealing with different people of different

Respondent 1
cultures around the globe.
New challenges. See the group complete a project successfully
Respondent 2
motivates me.
Respondent 3 Learning new technology. Pushing myself to more difficult levels.
Respondent 4 I'm motivated by the fine salary I get at the end of the month.
Table 4 Self-Motivation in Inter-Cultural Virtual Projects

8
This category is probably the most important of all, as provides a self-reflection quality.
It is particularly interesting that all but one responses refer to purely intrinsic motivators.
Diversity of projects, new challenges, learning, pushing oneself, attaining the goal, the
sense of responsibility, pride in accomplishing something bigger, becoming better, self-
accomplishment and a fine salary at the end of the month. All these factors are related to
the internal gears that drive each individual and have little or no connection to external
factors.
Obviously, this does not mean that without motivators, like a salary, or recognition, these
individuals would continue working with the same motivation levels. What it means is
that when given the opportunity of reflecting on what drives them, they think of factors
that come from within. Even more interesting is that, the only person that acknowledges a
motivator as the primary source of motivation is Respondent 4.

Chapter 8: Observation and Conclusion

8.1 Observation on the Analysis
The observation about the first category, Virtual environments, is the fact that advantages
noted by the respondents have a background of own personal enrichment. However, the
disadvantages are linked directly to the social aspect of virtual projects. Team building,
communication, misunderstanding, language barriers, enthusiasm, all seem to fit in a
pattern of social interaction and intercultural environment.
The second category, Virtual teams, presents one of the main challenges of virtual teams
and some of the problems that may derive from it. The lack of physical meetings and
face-to-face interactions introduce a difficult situation.
Motivation in Intercultural virtual projects is the third and fourth theme emerging from
the responses and are probably the most revealing of all. The main personal motivators of
each respondent are so strong and genuine that everyone can feel as own motivators.
8.2 Conclusion
This study has been a personal journey that offered both expected and unexpected results.
The expected results came in the shape of a lack of motivational features in intercultural
project environment.
However, a complete set of unexpected results came with the notion of motivators and
the way that translates into actual working settings.

9
challenges in virtual settings. The progress and the notion of improvement is an
extremely powerful motivator that drives us and the salary as motivator is negligible
whereas recognition, appreciation and learning curves with different people having
different cultural background seem as good motivators.

10
INTERCULTURAL ONSITE PROJECT MANAGEMENT

Farzaneh Sabzi

Matrikel-Nr: 447690

11
 Chapter 9: Challenges of Intercultural Onsite Projects
9.1 Background
National project management has an extended scope with different challenges like multi-
cultural and cross-cultural conditions which is cause mainly by individuals including
team members and stakeholders from diverse cultures with different ways of thinking and
working procedures. It is the project manager’s responsibility to eliminate obstacles and
to execute the project plan successfully within a limited timeframe. Because of constant
pressure and the fast moving environment, project managers are expected to work very
efficiently. They are prepared to set up a project plan and to adjust its structure to the
local conditions as best as possible.

According to PMBOK Guide (A Guide to the Project Management Body) a project is a

temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service, or result. The
temporary nature of projects indicates that a project has a definite beginning and end.
The project is managed by a project manager (The PMBOK Guide - 2015) is the person
assigned by the performing organization to lead the team that is responsible for achieving
the projects objectives. Beside team, stockholders are required to be managed by project
manager. Stockholders group includes all members of the project as well as all interested
entities that are internal or external to the organization. Some examples of stockholders:
Sponsors, Customer and users, sellers, Business parties, organizational groups (internal
stockholders), Functional managers, etc.

Projects are inherently collaborative efforts. The very nature of projects is such that
project teams are usually comprised of multiple team members. Team members can not
only be employees, but also clients, vendors, sub-contractors, and other third parties.
Onsite or collocated teams are those which can work side-by-side with one another.
They normally share a working environment and benefiting from joining efforts and
creating synergy. Halverson & Tirmizi (2008) defined: The multicultural team is a
collection of individuals with different cultural backgrounds, who are independent in
their task, who share responsibility for outcomes, who see themselves and are seen by
others as an intact social entity embedded in one or more larger social system, and who
manage their relationships across organizational boundaries and beyond.

9.2 Objectives
This study aims to fulfill some specific objectives as follows:

 To examine the effects of work environment on team members from different

cultural backgrounds
 To determine limitations of multicultural onsite projects
 To determine main positive and negative factors of onsite teams

The content of this paper is based on a research following by a survey to find out most
prominent challenges of onsite projects. In addition, drawbacks and benefits of this type

12
of project which have been pinpointed by participants is declared. Result of this survey is
based of participants’ responses from different cultures including Indonesians, Nigerians,
Lebanese/Syrians, Belgians/Germans, Indians, and Pakistanis.

This paper will be useful for top level of management and project managers to have a
better understanding of onsite projects aspects (drawbacks, benefits, challenges) once
working with a multicultural team. The outcome can shed some light for project
managers to lead team members effectively and efficiently. I hope that this paper will
help them with the management of diverse staff in organizations and inspire them to
analyze and rethink your current situation.

9.3 Survey Method

To collect the data across cultures, the original questionnaire was developed in English
and distributed to willing participants (project managers and team members). The online
questionnaire was implemented by www.smartsurvey.co.uk sent through emails and
social networking to colleagues and co-workers from different culture-geographically
distributed in the south Asia and Europe. Project managers and team members were
requested to participate in this study through direct messages or indirect messages
(forwarding my message to other people by receivers). Ultimately, 117 completed
questionnaires were received.

9.4 Analysis and Results

The factors mentioned in this paper are the most influential ones chosen by participants
of survey supported by some information and example of other resources. It is worth to
mention that some of benefits may have negative effects, while some of the drawbacks
may have some positive effects. For example, working in the same office might increase
networking feasibility, however, it may probably bring less flexibility in work schedules.

9.4.1 Workplace
A controlled working environments where project manager can have “better
supervision” (78% of project managers) on internal and external parameters of
interruptions and conflicts can increases productivity. Apart from control, what does
drive team members to work in an office?

Working environment 63%

Meeting people from other cultures 65%

88%
Discussion and problem solving
Brain storming
53%
41%
Work-life balance
Table 5-1: Benefits of multicultural work place

13
The most enjoyable task in onsite projects is “discussions and solving problems” (88%)
following by “meeting people from other cultures” (65%). It was clearly determined by
participants that cultural diversity plays a great role in solving problems. Their cultural
backgrounds broaden team’s perspective to the issue. As a result, tackling problems are
much easier: various outlooks leads to different interpreting process, solving problems
and predicting future possibilities work together to produce a distinctive mental tool set.
Groups with this sort of variety consistently outperform groups working with a single
problem-solving perspective. Brain storming identified by almost half of people as an
advantage (53%) which is fairly difficult in virtual teams.

Nearly tree quarters believe that working in the same place is pleasant and motivating.
“Sense of family” was mentioned by more that 60% of people. They basically, appreciate
the chance to empathize and assist other colleagues to improve. It is one of aspects which
is less likely to exist in virtual teams. Generally, flexibility in work schedule is less than
distributed teams. Since, under some policies, employees must work a prescribed number
of hours a pay period and be present during a daily “core time”. Although, traditional 9 to
5, 40 hours work per week dose not allow employees to vary their arrival and departure
times, and they prefer more flexibility at work. Office work schedule is yet another
benefit of going to office. For example: One of participants remarked that “leaving office
in the afternoon means time to work is over, so it helps me to invest my time on other
dimensions of life.”. In other words, work-life balance (42% approximately) is
considered as a benefit of going to workplace.

On the other hand, there are some drawbacks of working in an office with with
multicultural colleagues. Understanding office rules and regulation is the most
challenging issue for foreigners – mentioned by one quarter. It takes a while till they
adherent rules independently without receiving hints and reminders from human resource
staff or project managers. Moreover, they found some of office rules irritating: For
example, requirements for attendance, leave and time off, having limited personal items
and dress codes. When companies create ridiculous and demoralizing rules to halt the
outlandish behavior of a few individuals, it’s a management problem. There’s no sense in
alienating your entire workforce because you don’t know how to manage performance. It
makes a bad situation that much worse.

The other negative point might be “discriminations”: as employees have closer contact
with each other in workplace, they know more details about one another, any type of
discrimination can be easily tangible and visible by the entire team (this is pinpointed by
about 30% of participants). Needless to say, negative discriminations have destructive
impact on the team specially when they get offended by cultural discrimination.

The third drawback of working in the same workplace identified by 25% of participants
is being minority in office. Due to less cultural diversity in onsite projects, majority of
team members are from the same culture and expats automatically considered as
minorities. Therefore, cultural influence of minorities is less and foreigners basically
need to follow the dominated culture (local culture).

Following office rules 34%

14
 Being a minority and having less power 25%

Cultural discrimination 29%

Understanding regulations 42%
Table 5-2: Drawbacks of multicultural work place

9.4.2 Multicultural as a key parameter

Whether the cultural differences of a workforce lead to positive or negative impacts
depends on various variables. The implementation of particular measures can offer
assistance to diminish or indeed avoid issues such as team conflicts based on cultural
differences. Furthermore, managing cultural diversity may offer assistance an
organization to advantage as much as possible from positive angles like expanded
productivity, improved problem solving, improved innovation.

0%-30% 19%
31%-50% 45%
51%-70% 25%
71%-90% 11%
91%-100% 0%
Table 5-3: Impact of culture on work interaction

Responses to this optional question reveals that people who had more intercultural
experience determined less impact of culture on their interactions (about 19%). Even
some of them added some sentences in comment part like “These questions are racist.
We all learn from each other.” or “Personality plays more important role”. This group of
response was related to those with a significant work experience (more than 13 years).
However, the vast majority believe it as very important parameter (between 31-90%) and
subsequently can not be ignored. The impact may have negative result like
misunderstanding our positive outcome like more innovation. It is crucial for project
managers to provide an encouraging ambiance in office where every once is interested to
know about other cultures.

What are disadvantages of mono-cultural teams?

These need not all be negative points. Studies of intercultural teams show that their
variety and different approaches can actually give a better result than mono-cultural
groups, provided appropriate expertise in dealing with different cultures is developed and
available. According to the survey result, monoculture teams for some cultures have
some negative sides. Here are some instances:

Participants from Iran elaborated that the major drawback of working with the same
culture can be “underestimated training”. There are few guide lines and instructions
written and available for everyone. As a result, newly joined team members have to learn
by “try-error” mechanism which is time-consuming and not efficient.

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Among Syrians and Lebanese, “making all team members following office rules” is
troublesome. As they described, people from different cultures in their countries are more
willing to have their own rules to obey. For a project manger it takes time to coordinate
them.

In German and Belgium cultures, a team member is expected to inform project

managers in case of facing problems. If that person for any reasons dose not speak out the
problem stays hidden and will cause unexpected outcome later.

In Indian teams, probably “competition to prove your skills” adds more work pressure
and exhausts members after a while. They explained that “finding a job is not easy in
India, if you do not show that you are noteworthy, there are plenty of candidates that can
be replaced by you”.

Mono-cultural 27%
Multicultural 73%
Table 5-4: Multicultural popularity

Cultural diversity at work placed was likable for majority of participants. Only 27
percentage prefer mono-cultural work office because of some reasons like: language, less
misunderstanding and less conflicts. Multicultural aspect attracts employees because of
some reasons. For example: communicating and learning cultural perceptions or
benefiting from different cultural values.

9.4.3 Communication
Even for onsite projects where coworkers benefit from the most effective way of
communication (so called face-to-face) , yet the main challenge is understanding
different cultural perceptions. (It was mentioned by 3 out of 4 participants). Language
is another barrier (28%) in multicultural projects. Although all team members can
communicate not only via the same language but also their body language and facial
expressions. Effective communication is among the most essential parameters in team
operating. Intercultural aspect deteriorates the situation and makes communication more
challenging. It might be the reason why face-to-face communication is more suitable
even for multinational work groups. It was preferred by a significant majority (77%).
Furthermore, about 78 percentage of participants pointed out it vital for networking and
building trust.

Face-to-face 77%
Virtually 28%
Table 5-5: Preference for communication

There are plenty of reasons for face-to-face communication achievements. Here are some
of them:
1- Body Language: Facial expression and body posture can communicate along with
words. Specifically, in high-context cultures, it plays an important role to reduce
misunderstanding.
2- Ensures Engagement: Contrary to virtual communication, it is easy to realize

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 when people involve the conversations. Imagine people at a conference call in
front of their computers while they have access to plenty of applications and can
keep themselves busy with other activities rather than real contribution in the
meeting.
3- Drives contribution: As attendees sitting in meeting rooms, the atmosphere
encourages them to participate in discussions.

Despite the power this type of communication, there are some downside determined by
participants:

1- Cost of communication and meetings in onsite teams is by far higher than virtual
communication. In virtual team that members work in different locations and take
advantages of virtual communication tools which are in general cheaper than
traveling for a face-to-face meeting. (above 70% found it costly)
2- Business meetings can be a serious drain on company productivity. When staff
has to spend time in meetings, then that's action that is not being taken to meet
company goals and objectives. And the more staff involved in meetings, the more
this lack of productivity can affect the company's output on any given day. For
this reason, companies try to limit the amount of time that employees spend in
meetings. Although, this issue can be handled intelligently in companies, about 1
out of 5 project managers and team members consider it as a downside (21%).

9.4.4 Recruitment

On one hand, collocated projects are older than other types like outsourcing and virtual
teams. Consequently, workforce is more familiar with this traditional style. Onsite is the
most traditional type of project management which is well known for the majority of
team members, stockholders and project managers. Majority of Managers feel onsite
project are easier to manage (78%) not only because of personal interactions but also
because of not psychologically fitting of individuals for virtual teams (a quarter of
project manger and team member). In other words, some aspects of virtual teams are not
acceptable for them. Here are some random issues the participants mentioned in comment
part of questions: “working in untrusted work environment”, and “lack of virtual
skills”. Therefore, it seems easier to find employees who are are able to work in onsite
projects.

On the other hand, finding the necessary talented team members in one place is
challenging. In any given locality, there appears to be a talent shortage. And the natural
and random movement of people makes it hard to keep them together. Geography makes
it hard to get these teams together. Human resource managers normally look for local
people to hire but what if there is a shortage of skilled and qualified workforce? They
need to utilize expats who on average have higher salaries.

Furthermore, generally, cultural diversity in onsite teams are lower than other sorts of
project teams on the grounds that recruitment pool is limited to the location of project.

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Availability of a pool of employees regardless of location, and possibility of easily
expanding the workforce require developing skills of employees on special virtual
teaming supporting applications.

Cost of hiring expats 65%

Limited recruitment pool 53%
Table 5-6: Difficulties of onsite recruitment

Responses to the question of challenges of onsite recruitment revels that “cost of hiring
expatriates” is a major drawback (65%) and the second important one is “limitation in
recruitment pool” identified by almost half of participants. It is noteworthy that beside
from above elements there is another implicit effect which is “less cultural diversity”.

9.4.5 Autonomy
Autonomy refers to level of freedom, independence, and flexibility in scheduling granted
to team members in determining the procedures to be used in carrying it out (Hackman
and Oldham, 1975). Some scholarly person have referred to liberty using different terms
such as “decentralization” of anatomical structure (Brock, 2003), “authorization” (Elmore
John Leonard -Barton, 1992) or “freedom”. In other words, self-sufficiency can be
described as the empowerment of somebody to contribute meaningfully to the tasks
(Gerwin and Moffat, 1997a; Leonard-Barton, 1992). Similarly, Sethi (2000) states that
self-reliance in New Product Development refers to the extent to which somebody in a
team have the exemption to make own project-related decisions and conduct employment
without interference from senior managers.

Previous studies have shown that autonomy is an important predecessor of a work

group’s performance, and team members creativity. For example, Cotgrove and
Boxwood (1970) and Pelz and Andrews (1966) bill that autonomy and decision freedom
are essential to innovative demeanor (as cited in Scott and Bruce, 1994). Amabile and
Gryskiewicz (1987) found that a lack of operational autonomy or a lack of freedom over
one's work or idea inhibited creativity and innovation. In a similar mineral vein, studies
of projects show a strong family relationship between autonomy and innovation. For
example, McDonough and Barczak (1991) found that the speed of new merchandise
development is significantly related to the amount of freedom and responsibility given to
team members. Another study by Barczak and Wilemon (1992) noted that technical
professionals desire a high degree of autonomy to ascendance their activities and to make
their own decisions about their roles and how to solve specific trouble.

Virtual teams Onsite teams

Freedom in decision making 3.4 2.3
Level of responsibility and input 3.8 3.3
Independence in tasks 4.1 2.4
Table 5-7- Autonomy
* Scoring question result from 1 to 5

Above table shows less autonomy in co-located projects. Providing more autonomy is
virtual teams may stem from the fact that some methods like micromanagement is

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technically impossible. Also, virtual conversation in different time zones reduce the
chance of controlling every single steps in tasks. Therefore, project managers prefer to
give team members more freedom.

9.5 Conclusion and recommendations

9.5.1 Conclusion

As discussed in previous sections, there are some features of multicultural onsite projects
which play an important role in project management. Although, each parameter might
consider negative or positive depends on many factors like the context of project and
priorities chosen by top level of management.

For majority of project managers, it is easier to control the environment in onsite project
but team members will probably encounter less autonomy in their tasks. One major
motivator for onsite team members is interacting with people with different cultural
background. Socializing, learning from each other culture, having wider outlook,
discussions and brain storming are pleasant and stimulating. Generally, flexibility in
work schedule is less than distributed teams but it may bring more work-life balance for
employees. Cultural differences and language are still barriers. However, having more
intercultural experience, creating a positive attitudes toward cultural differences can
improve the situation. Creating multicultural teams seems to be inevitable because of
global market and financial factors as well as workforce willingness to upgrade. The
attitude of mono-cultural teams can be improved if they mix with other cultures. Beside
the cost of face-to-face communication, it is preferred by the majority of people because
of its effectiveness to reduce misunderstanding and conflicts. Limited recruitment pool
and consequently expenses of hiring expats are the main difficulties to create an onsite
team.

9.5.2 Action point for future

There are some limitations associated with this study and it is noteworthy to address
these limitations for future study. First, this study was conducted utilizing individual team
members mainly working on software projects across countries; therefore, product type
role “software” for this case was ignored. There are some elements like country of
workplace and dominated culture could not be measured, due to necessity of having
question according to projects. Not surprisingly, some responses were ignored because of
it’s insufficient numbers: For example, there were only one participants from Russia.
In addition, for this study only national cultures were taken into account and cultural
dimensions (e.g.: specific vs diffuse) were omitted.
Regarding above research limitations, it may be interesting to examine the function of
type of products in multicultural teams. For instance, architectural products are impacted
significantly by cultures; how location and culture diversity influence the final product.
Additional research may elaborate culture to cultural dimensions or cultural groups in
every nation, in order to cater more concise and measurable information. It may also
worth knowing that how effective the location of company is.

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