Culture Map: Project Management Seen Through the Eyes of Managers Across the Globe:

Qualitative Research (Interviews)

1.0 Introduction

The need for people, organization, industries and sectors to effectively strategize towards
achieving a set goal or objective has made project management ubiquitous across the globe
(Anderson and Mattson, 2010). This owes to the fact that the effective management of a project
is often constrained by challenges like scope, cost, time, and quality (Fageha and Aibinu, 2012).
Hence, project management is a useful skill that is needed for sustainable growth and
development to be achieve in all societal spheres, especially in this present time where
globalization has bridged the barrier of distance and intensified communication and social
relationships among people, industries, organizations and sectors across the globe (Georgantzas
et al. 2010).

Evidently, globalization has led to an increase in expansion of business enterprises to

multinational corporations who operate across geographical boundaries of the world. This
situation has however led to a universal standardization of business and industry operation across
the globe. Owing to this, many business operations are guided by framework and policies that
are not subjected to the diverse cultural realities existent within societies they operate.
Consequently, the globalization of business operations has been solely driven by sustainability of
output performance (Raymond and Bergeron, 2007).

Against the aforementioned, many businesses enterprises and corporations that operates in
multicultural environments follow the universal standardized guidelines thereby relegating the
social and cultural realities that exists in their environment to the background. With regards to
this, there is a need for business enterprise to upgrade and improve their operational and
management skills in order to understand how diversities in culture can affect their work and
enhance effectiveness in dealing with these differences. Therefore, this research intends to focus
on assessing the existing culture map and its impact on project managers across the globe.
1.2 Statement of the problem

The goal of most project managers is to effectively plan, execute, and implement projects to
achieve desired outcome. However, with the advent of globalization and business operations in
diverse cultures across the world most business enterprises and multinational corporations
subject their operations to universal guidelines that do not take consideration of social factors
such as culture, local laws and politics and economical situations (Farkhoutdinov and Isavnin,
2016). In response to this situation, many past research works have focused on understanding
how culture impacts business operation and project management in the global environment but
very little documentation has been done to capture the unique subjective methods and techniques
that managers adopt in relation to their cultural realities. Hence, there is a need to assess how
culture map influences the way managers perceive project management across the globe. The
following are the objectives and questions that this research intends to answer.

1.3 Research Objectives

1. To identify the existing culture maps utilized in project management across the globe.
2. To understand how cross-cultural complexities have influence project management across the
globe.
3. To investigate the strategies managers adopt in dealing with cross-cultural complexities across
the globe

1.4 Research Questions

1. What are the existing culture maps utilized in project management across the globe?
2. How do cross-cultural complexities influence project management across the globe?
3. What are the strategies adopted by managers in dealing with cross-cultural complexities across
the globe?
1.5 Literature Review

This section contained a brief review of relevant literature on the perception of managers across
the globe on project management. Particularly of this proposal, literature was reviewed in line
with the research objectives. Thus, the following subthemes were briefly reviewed: overview of
project management, culture map, and cross-cultural complexity.

1.5.1 An Overview of Project Management

From time immemorial, people, institutions, and organizations have been undertaking projects to
fulfill a mandate, obligation, set goal, aim, or objective. This indicates that human history is a
progressive development of project management in association with modern conversion
technologies that are a product of societal evolution. This is evident in historical completed
projects such as: The pyramid of Giza, The great wall of China, and the Coliseum (Cox and
Goldratt, 1986). Hence, project management has consistently evolved through significant events
in traditional and modern history like world wars, space shots, invention of the internet and
social media (Chiu, 2010).

In spite of this progressive evolution, it is important to point out that project management has a
ubiquitous usefulness. Thus, recent happenings in society today have presented an opportunity
for new projects to be created daily. In this regard, a brief review will be done on the history of
project management.

1.5.1.1 Project Management in the traditional societies

At a point history, when societies and countries around the world where self sufficient rural
economies there have existed unique application of tools, skills, and knowledge on how to
execute and implement projects (Henrie et al, 2005). Most projects done in ancient societies
allowed individuals to multitask and add project management their job role description (Ferreira,
2014). For instance, traders, architects, builders, engineers, family heads, community leaders
amongst others while serving their primary roles had to also become project managers in order to
achieve successful execution, implementation and completion of ancient society projects. Hence,
the present-day project management is a biproduct of progressive evolution of society that has
been done throughout human history with achieved success been a major driver for new
conversion technology for implementation of modern projects (Kozak-Holland, 2011).

Against the aforementioned, it is pertinent to note that there exists a scarce record and
representation of ancient society project management. This is similar to findings of Chiu in his
book on A History of Ancient Project: From Mesopotamia to the Roman Empire where he
asserts that the concept of project was not prevalent in ancient texts when compared to other field
or disciplines such as: Medicine, Architecture, Engineering, amongst others (Chiu, 2011). Some
of the completed projects in ancient traditional societies include: the great Pyramid of Giza, The
Great Wall of China, the Coliseum, the hanging gardens of Babylon and the Stonehenge to name
a few are products of ancient traditional society of project management (Chandler, 2014).

1.5.1.2 Project Management in the modern societies

With regards the precise date modern project management started, there still exist an ongoing
global debate to affirm that fact. According to Chiu, in his work on The History of Project
Management: From the Earliest Times to A.D.1900 the activities of Henri Fayol and Henry
Gantt marked the beginning of project management (Chiu, 2010). However, contradicting this
assertion, another group of scholars are of the perception that although both Henri Fayol and
Henry Gantt made significant contributions to the field of management, project management
started in ancient times way before their notable scholarly contributions (Fell 2000; KWAK
2003; Chiu, 2010).

Henri Fayol contributed immensely to project management through the identification of the five
functions of ideal management which are: planning, organizing, commanding, coordinating and
controlling. He also went a step further to formulate 14 principles which serve as a blueprint to
guide managerial functions (Fells, 2000). With reference to the contribution of Henry Gantt
which is evident in the development of the Gantt chart where he revealed the importance of
dividing large projects into smaller manageable tasks (KWAK. 2003). The model of the Gantt
chart still serves as a guide to most modern-day projects.
Furthermore, in a bid to capture the history of modern project management, in 2003 Kwak
identified four periods in the history of modern project: prior to 1958, 1958 – 1979, 1980 – 1994,
and 1995 to present (KWAK, 2003). According to him, prior to 1958 marked the period where
traditional project management advanced to incorporate human relation administration. The
period of 1958 – 1979 marked a significant progress in technological advance and its application
to management science. Between 1980 to 1984 the advent of personal computers began and
multitasking was introduced into business operation. This paved way for the innovational
development of computer software to aid efficient project management (Bizness Académie,
2012). Also, during this period Eliyahu M. Goldratt in his work on "The Goal" which he
proposed a theoretical model on constraints that guides the achievement of set organizational
goals (Cox and Goldratt, 1986). In the fourth era till present day modern technology has
continued to be a driving force for dynamism, and greatly affect project management. This
period marked the creation of modern software that aided the effective operation of team
management for projects (Azzopardi, 2014).

1.5.2 Culture Map and project Management

In existing literature, culture map has been used to describe a set of tools used to aid business
operations and management (Farkhoutdinov and Isavnin, 2016). The cultural map help managers
effectively manage cultural gaps that exists within organizations. These tools are used to tackle
challenges that may arise from globalization of business enterprises. According to previous
research, the culture map is a necessity for business operation to understand cultural diversities
that can affect work outcomes (Nelson, 2012). Therefore, it serves as a yard stick to guide
expected management behavior in the presence of cultural gaps.

1.5.3 Cross-cultural complexities and project management across the globe

In recent times where globalization has paved way for country alliances, rapid movement in
capital investment and labor, there is a necessity to monitor cross-cultural complexities of project
management across the globe (Georgantzas et al. 2010). Cross-cultural complexities however
arise from the inherent differences that exist in culture (Buckley, Clegg, and Tan, 2006).
However, for most businesses to strive in a multicultural environment factor such as values,
customs, politics, economies, laws amongst others must be taken into consideration.
1.6 Methodology

This section centres on the methodology that will be adopted in this research in terms of data
collection and analysis techniques.

1.6.1 Research design

This research will be cross sectional in nature. It will document the subjective perceptions of
project managers across the globe in line with the existential culture map. Also, this research will
solely employ qualitative techniques for both data collection and analysis.

1.6.3 Study Area and Population

The study is global in nature and hence data will be gathered from three continents which are
Asia, Europe and Africa. Also, the population for this will be managers who have had between
10 to 15 years of working experience in any multinational corporation.

1.6.4 Sampling procedure

Owing to the fact that the research is qualitative, this research will be non-probabilistic in nature.
Hence, purposive selection and snowballing will be adopted select managers to be interviewed.
There will also be a continuous collection of qualitative data from managers until when the point
of saturation is met. Hence, for the purpose of this proposal 15 interviews will be conducted
subject to when the point of saturation is met. Asides from this, there will be a review and
assessment of some organizational records of business enterprise that operate in multicultural
environment.

1.6.6 Research instruments and procedure for administration

The instrument for the secondary data will include documents, archives and organizational
records of business enterprise that operate in multicultural environments, while primary data will
be collected using the key informant interview (KII).
Research instrument and Objective Matrix
Research Objectives Organizational records KII
Objective 1 
Objective 2  
Objective 3  

1.6.7 Method of data analysis

All documented organization records and archives will be systematically reviewed, while
qualitative excerpts of the KII will transcribed and analyzed according to subthemes of the
research objectives using content analysis approach.

1.6.8 Ethical consideration

The principles governing human research which include: confidentiality, beneficence, Non-
malfeasance, and Voluntariness will be observed and strictly adhered to.

1.7 Conclusion

The successful execution of this research project will introduce a new perspective and serve as a
guide for future research in the global agenda of culture map in project management.
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