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Project Management in International Settings

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Managing Cross-Cultural Conflict: minimizing crosscultural misunderstanding

What tools can help to reduce cross-culture conflict in international project?

Abstract
In recent years, the trend for project development becomes more
challenging. Now a day, businesses become more competitive. In order to get
several advantages, companies start their operation globally. Many
international projects are developed in different places with the collaboration
of different companies from different country. According to Gupta (2008),
the business become complexly globalized and become more challenging. If
we look at international project development, most of them are established
in different countries in order to take advantage of place, cost, and expertise
on specific area. But in an international project development, we found
barriers, like skill barrier, cultural barrier, communication barrier within
different nation workers in a single project. Culture differs from country to
country and it impacts on development of international project
management. Cross- cultural conflict may spoil project in the middle. In this
paper, we are trying to focus on why cultural conflict arises in the
international projects and what can be possible solution to minimize the
cross cultural conflict.

Introduction
In business, it is common now a day that stakeholders and project owners
need not to be present where project is established. It is becoming more
international. In developing projects, it is important to communicate with
every departments and places which are connected with the ongoing project.
To finish a project successfully, we need skilled people from different part of
the world those who has experience, knowledge and experience in that
particular project. This is advantage in an international project. But there
are barriers in managing skilled people from different part of the world as
well. In an international project, it is common that there can be
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misunderstanding among stakeholders. Reason of conflict in an

international project could be cultural, language, technological, time
difference and so on. Working in a different environment and with people
from different region could be cultural shock. Different region has different
work culture. Corporate culture in Western Europe, Eastern Europe, North
America, Asia and Nordic working culture differs in many ways. There are
many articles and books published about this communication problem in
different work environment. There are many examples about failure of
negation due to cross-culture communication barrier. Difference between
two nations could be totally opposite. According to Lewis (2005), Like,
Spaniards are generally friendly and affable, extremely hospitable when
hosting. Enthusiastic small talk and socializing precede and procrastinate
getting down. While Swedish management is decentralized and democratic;
the hierarchical structure of the typical Swedish company has a decidedly
horizontal look about it. Power distance is small and the manager is
generally accessible to staff and available for discussion. Therefore when
people are away from home and enter a new environment, they have to come
into contact with many new values, new practices and ways of living. These
changes may stress for people from different cultures working together. So,
due to cultural difference, there might be conflict between companies who
are from different nation working on an international project. But there are
some tools that can help to avoid or reduce the barrier and make the project
successful. Mostly in an international project, we found that cultural
difference causes big difficulties among the stakeholders. Projects delayed
not because of technical inconvenience, rather for cross cultural conflict.
According to Dadfar (1992), most of the international project was not
successful due to cross- cultural conflict.

Theoretical Section
Before talk about culture conflict, we need to know about what culture
means, why culture is important and how it impacts on international project
development. According to Hofstede (1994, p.1), culture is collective
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programming of mind that distinguishes one member of an organization to

other. Campbell on his part defines culture as a complex web of
information that a person learns and which guides each persons actions,
experiences, and perceptions According to Payne (1996, ), Culture is about
values, and developing systems and symbols that reinforce and perpetuate
those values, so that people behave reliably and predictably to achieve the
culture's purposes. Culture plays important role in an international project.
A projects success mostly depends on it. According to Edger Schein (1990),
Culture is the pattern of basic assumptions that a given group has
invented, discovered or developed in learning to cope with its problems of
external adaption and internal integration, and have worked well enough to
be considered valid and, therefore, to be taught to new members as the
correct way to perceive, think and feel in relation to those problems.
According to Hofstede, there are there are several factors that are
responsible for cross-cultural conflict. He figures out five factors that varies
from nation to nation and that impact on international project development.
They are power distance, uncertainty, individualism, masculinity and long
term orientation.
1. Power Distance
Power distance is the extent to which society accepts the fact the
power in institutions and organizations is unevenly distributed.
Cultures that approve low power distance expect and accept power
relations that are more consultative or democratic.
Power distance is important factor in an international project. Every
country has different corporate culture. Organizational hierarchy is
different in every country. For some country, employees are familiar
with horizontal organizational hierarchy; some are used in vertical
hierarchy. Power distance for both of the hierarchy is different and it
impacts in workforce and time for completion of project.

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2. Individualism
Individualism is the degree to which individuals are integrated to
groups. In individualistic societies, the stress is put on personal
achievements and individual rights. They measure their success or
loss based on individual performance.
According to lewis (2005, p.341), every employee has different belief.
One could believe in individualism, others may not. Like in Sweden
they believe in collectivist and that costs time in decision making. On
the other hand, US corporate culture beliefs in individualism. Their
business decision does not affected by sentiment. They usually take
risk, go alone and do their job. This is their way of doing business. In
an international project, way of making decision impacts its deadline.

3. Uncertainty
Uncertainty means a degree to which a society feels threaten by
uncertainty and ambiguity. People from high certainty tend to more
emotional than people who like to face uncertainty. They try to avoid
unusual circumstances and carefully change steps and rules to
achieve their goal. In contrast, low uncertainty avoidance cultures
accept and feel comfortable in unstructured situations or changeable
environments and try to have as few rules as possible. People in these
cultures tend to be more practical and more tolerant of change. In an
international project, we see uncertainty is an important issue. Some
nation, like to take risk like USA. They consider uncertainty as
challenge, on the other hand, Sweden has the fear of confrontation,
thats why like to avoid conflict and prefer lower degree of uncertainty.
It impacts on international project in decision making.

4. Masculinity
It is the distribution of emotional roles between genders. It is
preference for achievement, assertiveness and material success.
Masculine cultures values are competitiveness, assertiveness,
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materialism, ambition and power, whereas feminine cultures place

more value on relationships and quality of life. In masculine cultures,
the differences between gender roles are more dramatic and less fluid
than in feminine cultures where men and women have the same
values emphasizing modesty and caring.
Some countrys corporate culture believes in money, power, success
and objects (lewis, 2005; p.342). This is why they prefer masculinity.
In project development, if the project is based on the criteria like
developing something thats purpose is more object oriented prefer
masculinity.

5. Long term Orientation

It describes societys time horizon. Long term oriented societies attach
more values in future planning. They foster their values towards
rewards, savings and adaptation capability. On the other hand, short
term oriented societies, values promoted related to the past and
present, respect of tradition and fulfilling social obligations. To
develop an international project planning is important thing. Project
could be long term or short term depends on its criteria. If project is
sensitive, it needs long term orientation to avoid conflicts.

Why Culture is Important

Culture is an important thing in an international project. According to Gore
(2013, p.3) It describes the ability to successfully form, foster, and improve
relationship with members of a culture different from ones own culture.
within an organization, when employees from different country work
together to develop a project, it is important to know other co-workers
culture. It will help them to communicate efficiently and help them to avoid
conflicts between their thoughts and views. It helps to build understanding
within the group of people who are responsible for developing projects.
In an organization, we found many people from different country those who
hold different cultural values. These differences are cross-cultural barriers
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in an international project. These cross-cultural barriers could be language

barrier, perceptual barrier, emotional barrier, gender barrier. Organizational
cultures of employees vary in these ways and it may create difficulties when
they work together in a project. Sue and Sue, (1977) pointed out that
misunderstandings arise from cultural variations in verbal and nonverbal
communication and may lead to lineation and/or an inability to develop
trust and rapport. So it is important to know and understand culture of
employees from different area and communicate efficiently to overcome the
cross-cultural barrier. In this paper I will focus on cross-cultural conflict in
an international project and tools that would minimize the conflicts and
develop the project efficiently.

In order to achieve goal, organization has their value, norms, culture.

According to dauber (2012), organizational culture is one of the influential
factors to measure its performance. In his article he explains different
cultural models developed by different author within the organization and
their effectiveness in various projects. Among all of them, a model developed
in 2006 by Hatch and Cunliffe which is the successor of other models and
effective one according to Dauber. Unlike other models, this model considers
organizational as a whole and practice and develop cultural value and
norms within the organization. Hatch and Cunliffe (2006) showed that all
domain within are organization are connected to each other and create a
culture where all domain are inter connected with each other. As they

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believe, organizational culture is guidance for an organization and it helps

organization to run projects efficiently.
It is obvious, if an organization works with different stakeholders from
different culture, there will be cultural conflict. It may hamper the whole
project. Conflict is a situation of competition in which the parties are aware
of the incongruity of possible future positions and in which each party
wishes to occupy a position which is incompatible with the wishes of the
other. According to Najafbagy (2008), many projects have been failed that
are related to communication problem and cultural difference. In an
international project, cultural conflict could be for language barrier, working
hour barrier, power distance barrier and so on. According to Quaddus
(2002), conflict can be issue based or it can be interpersonal. Issue based
conflict occurs when there is misunderstanding between stakeholder about
resource allocation and work distribution. But Interpersonal conflict arises
due to language barrier and misunderstanding of their individual belief.
According to Marcus (2005) case analysis on French food retailers operate
business in Poland; i found that there is big conflict going on among two
stakeholders. It was due to lack of integration of knowledge, different routine
and cultural difference. Due to cross-cultural communication barrier,
project faces difficulties in decision making, setting objective.

Empirical Section (Saab 2000 Case)

As we mentioned earlier in the previous section about cross cultural
conflicts and its characteristics, that is regular issue in an international
project now a day. This is why we are going to dig dipper about some case
scenario of international projects in the following paragraphs and emphasis
the importance of perfect tools to minimize cross-cultural conflict.

The Saab 2000 case

An empirical review of international Project management
This case describes about international project development of a new
aircraft where many stakeholders were involved to make the project
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successful. As a part of international project, Crossair, a Swiss airline was

customer for the new aircraft and there are several suppliers as Allison (a
USA based engine manufacturing company), Casa (a company from Spain as
wing supplier). Among all of them Saab was facing difficulties in starting the
project through industry specific problem, technical complexities, staffing
and conflict with suppliers. In the beginning, Saab made an agreement with
these suppliers to develop Saab 2000 project. They encourage on the project
due to success of Saab 340 project. As a part of agreement, they initially
start the project and go for production then they found problem with each
other. It happened due to cross cultural conflict among suppliers and Saab.
Saab is a Swedish aircraft manufacturing company, did inefficient
communication with other stakeholders because of lack of cultural knowhow and lack of integration of knowledge about their culture. That is why
communication between Saab and stakeholders was slow and it costs time
and money. According to Hofstede, the five factors those are responsible for
cross-cultural conflict. In the case, I found that Swedish corporate culture is
based on collectivism. Whenever they work on project like this, they take
decision in long term basis, and they are reluctant to take any risk. In that
case, to cover the project expenditure and in considering the experience
from Saab 340 project, they want to start the project with more stakeholders
to avoid financial risks. In Swedish working culture, they prefer lower degree
of uncertainty. That is why they take support on specific stuffs like, wings
and other things from the stakeholders in order to run the project smooth.
But their stakeholder Allison is an US based company, whose corporate
culture is aggressive and risk taking behavior in developing a project. On the
other hand the other stakeholder Casa is Spanish company, whose
corporate culture is stubborn. Negotiation with Spanish is not a easy thing
according to lewis (2005, p.270).

Analysis
If we look at Hofstedes cultural review on those stakeholders, we can see
the why the project was not a successful project.

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Saab, Sweden based aircraft manufacturing company. Saab was interested

to start their international project (Saab 2000) with several stakeholders.
They were inspired by the previous project Saab 340. It was the
collaboration with a US based company named Fairchild. According to
Hofstede, we can say Sweden is a country where organization is used to take
less risk and make secure long term planning.
Allison, a USA based aircraft engine manufacturing company, who take part
of Saab 2000 project. They support
Saab for supplying engine for the
project. As they are US based
company, they have different time
schedule or work hour and that
makes difficulties during the project
work. And their corporate culture is
different in compare with Saab.
If we look at Hofstede review of USA
culture, USA deal more with
uncertainty and mostly believe in
individualism. Compare with Sweden, they are ahead in making long term
future plan.
Casa, a Spanish part of Saab 2000
project worked with Saab. They are
supplying wings. But according to
hofstede review, we know that
Spanish culture is different from
Swedish culture. They deal with
uncertainty and emotional in decision
making. As they have higher power
distance and they are emotional, they
are less efficient in long term
planning.

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In Saab 2000 case, we see that there was a problem with suppliers in the
middle of the project. All happens due
to improper communication and lack
of cross-cultural knowledge. Saab as a
initiator of the project, they failed to
communicate with their suppliers.
They did not study about their
stakeholders corporate culture. As a
result, there is a big problem arising
during the project running period and
that cost extra money for the project.
According to Lewis (2005), we can see there is cultural difference among
supplier and Saabs corporate culture. In decision making, US oriented
companies are faster than Spanish. US culture is fast enough than Spanish
corporate culture. In compare with Sweden, managers have low power
distance than any other supplier. If we compare hofstedes review of three
companies, we can see the cultural conflict among these companies.
If we consider these three stakeholders cross-cultural behavior, we can see
that their mode of operation is
different in accordance with
Hofstedes five factors. In the
Saab 2000 case, we have seen
that they have conflict in
developing the project. It
happens because of each others
different value, objective,
mindset. Like, as a US based
company, Allison goal is to make
profit as fast and as much as
they can. They have lower power

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distance and high risk taking ability and mentality of high risk taking
culture. Their intension is to finish the project on time and gain profit from
it. On the other hand, Swedish culture is more of feminist. They care about
humanity rather than making profit. Their decision making is time
consuming, which impact negatively in the project. Spanish company, casa
has the power distance problem. They take long time to make any decision
that cost time and money for the other stakeholders. So, continuous delay
in project creates conflict among the stakeholders and slows down the
project.
In an international project, it is very important to finish project on time.
Projects have relation with profitability and perfection. If the stakeholders of
a project are not well communicated, it hampers the flow of the project and
that results failure of the project. So it is very important in project
management that project manager should careful about time, resource and
cost of the project and understand stakeholders mindset and organize the
project based on their ability and skill and make project successful.
According to Saab case, it was problem among suppliers with the main
aircraft manufacturer Saab. These three big companies has language
barriers, cultural difference was another problem to communicate with each
other. Among the three companies, they have different level of power
distance, so it is obvious that decision making will be time consuming and
not profitable for any of them. According to Gupta (2008), it is necessary to
learn others culture and act like that. So it would be easier for Saab, if they
quickly learn their suppliers culture and act them like that. If they arrange
more face to face meeting with stakeholders when it is necessary, that could
help them to avoid misunderstanding between stakeholders. Following those
tools could help stakeholders understand their roles in international project
and their importance in the project.

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Conclusion
Possible solution to minimize cultural conflict
It is common now a day that in an international project, there is conflict
among stakeholders. To reduce cross-cultural conflict, there are some tools
or strategies that could reduce misunderstanding between stakeholders
from different country and run the project successfully.

1. Understanding others culture

To reduce cultural conflict, it is important to know about
stakeholders cultural values, norms. Measuring the countrys cultural
difference helps manager to overcome the conflict.

2. Building interpersonal relationship

To overcome cultural barrier, it is important to build interpersonal
relationship among stakeholders. According to Dadfar (1992),
managers can obtain training at home and use their local partner for
developing interpersonal relationship.

3. Organizing social events

In order to reduce cross- cultural conflict, manager can arrange social
events to reduce the distance among stakeholders. According to
Chevrier (2003), it helps to build personal relationship.

4. Integrating knowledge among stakeholders

It is very important for international project manager to integrate
knowledge about stakeholders culture and share it among everyone
so that they can understand and respect others belief. According to
Gupta (2008), international project manager must need to learn
culture from different countries and integrate it to their workplace in
order to become successful in international project.

Some organizations sometime overlook the necessary communication

strategy throughout the development of project. Cross-cultural
communication strategy helps to reduce misunderstanding between people
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from different countries. These strategies will differ from one organization to
other based on its type of work area and size of organization. When in an
organization follows strategy of knowing each others culture and set plans
based on their work ability within the diversified team, the level of
misunderstanding among the team will be automatically reduced and can
take the best outcome from the culturally diversified team and make the
project successful. In the beginning of Saab project, if manager share
knowledge about cross-culture values, norms and beliefs, then project might
not face difficulties as they faced in the middle of the project. Everybody
would be aware of each others duty for the project development and set
their plan based on it.

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