Linköping University Linköping University | Department of Management and Engineering Bachelor Thesis in Business Administration, 15 credits | Atlantis Program Spring 2020 | ISRN-nummer: LIU-IEI-FIL-G--20/02246--SE
Communication in
Multicultural IT Project
Teams
A Qualitative Study from a Project Management
Perspective
Roshan Jamkatel
Beatrice Vaccari
Preface
This thesis was written as part of the Atlantis Program at Linköping University, Sweden in the spring of 2020 in order to complete a Bachelor in Business Administration. We would like to thank all the people involved and the ones who supported us throughout the process, without whom this thesis would not have seen the light. Special thanks go to:
Nandita Farhad, our thesis supervisor; you took us under your wise and resourceful wing from the beginning until the very end and you never stopped encouraging us to reach further and constantly improve our content and form.
The Atlantis Program directors of our universities: Courtney Recht-Debreuille (INSEEC), Danny Mittleman (DePaul University), and Gunilla Söderberg Andersson (LiU). Your availability and efforts allowed us to benefit from the exceptional opportunity of the Program.
Olga Yttemyr, course director, for introducing to us the course and the instructions of the thesis.
All the Interviewees and the professors we contacted for interviews, feedback, and advice. Thank you for your time and the invaluable information you shared with us.
Our fellow Atlantis students, for your feedback and support throughout the weeks.
And last but not least, infinite thanks to our families and friends, for your love and support, physical or virtual, coming from different parts of the world. Thank you for believing in us.
Abstract
Communication in Multicultural IT Project Teams
A Qualitative Study from a Project Management Perspective
This study aims at exploring the ways project managers can communicate within a multicultural team in an IT project. The purpose is to make the project process understandable and to ensure that the instructions are perceived by everyone in the same way, regardless of their cultural differences. A qualitative study has been conducted to gain more insights from both IT project managers and team members working in Finland, France, Italy, Uganda, and the USA. The empirical findings allowed the authors to gather enough information to present a set of skills that will help project managers develop their communication abilities when working with multicultural teams in IT projects. The majority of competencies found to be useful are soft skills related to interpersonal communication and their implications for team dynamics: empathy, clarity of thought, respect and responsibility, cultural awareness, and multicultural leadership. The findings contribute to both confirming existing theories and providing new information that could be implemented in academic articles, especially concerning skills useful to project managers.
Table of Contents
1 INTRODUCTION... 1 1.1 BACKGROUND ... 1 1.1.1 IT Projects ... 2 1.1.2 Multicultural Teams ... 2 1.2 PROBLEM STATEMENT ... 3 1.3 AIM AND PURPOSE ... 5 1.4 RESEARCH QUESTIONS ... 6 2 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK ... 72.1 PROJECT-BASED ORGANIZATIONS ... 7
2.1.1 Project Team ... 9
2.2 CULTURE ... 10
2.2.1 Individual Culture ... 10
2.2.2 Organizational Culture ... 12
2.2.3 Multicultural Organizations ... 13
2.3 PROJECT MANAGERS’INTERCULTURAL SKILLS... 15
2.3.1 Cultural Intelligence ... 16 2.4 COMMUNICATION ... 17 2.4.1 Communication Barriers ... 18 3 METHODOLOGY ... 21 3.1 RESEARCH PHILOSOPHY ... 21 3.2 RESEARCH APPROACH ... 21 3.3 RESEARCH STRATEGY ... 22 3.4 METHOD ... 23 3.5 SAMPLING ... 23 3.6 DATA COLLECTION ... 24 3.7 DATA ANALYSIS ... 26
3.8 RESEARCH TRUSTWORTHINESS AND CREDIBILITY ... 27
3.9 ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS ... 29
3.10 DELIMITATIONS AND GENERALIZABILITY ... 29
4 EMPIRICAL FINDINGS ... 30
4.1 ITPROJECTS ... 30
4.1.1 Why are IT Projects Different? ... 31
4.1.2 Why is Agile the Preferred Method for IT Projects? ... 34
4.1.4 The Relation Between Project Outcome and Team Heterogeneity ...38
4.2 CULTURAL DIFFERENCES ... 40
4.2.1 Corporate ... 40
4.2.2 Social Interactions ... 42
4.2.3 Language ... 42
4.2.4 Respecting Religious Practices ... 43
4.2.5 Multicultural Teams ... 44
4.2.6 Positive and Negative Elements of Multicultural Teams ... 45
4.3 PROJECT MANAGER’S INTERCULTURAL SKILLS... 49
4.3.1 Responsibility and Respect ... 49
4.3.2 Empathy ... 49
4.3.3 Amount of Information Spread to Employees ...50
4.3.4 Cultural Awareness ...50
4.3.5 Multicultural Leadership ... 51
4.4 COMMUNICATION ... 53
4.4.1 Work-related Information Sharing and Meetings ... 54
4.4.2 Roles’ Responsibilities ... 55
4.4.3 Informal Communication ... 55
4.4.4 Cooperation Tools and Models ... 57
4.4.5 How to Deal with Misunderstandings ... 58
4.4.6 Feedback ... 60
4.4.7 Beyond Work-talk: a Personal Connection ... 61
4.5 CHAPTER SUMMARY ... 62
5 ANALYSIS ... 64
5.1 IT PROJECTS ... 64
5.1.1 Why are IT Projects Different? ... 64
5.1.2 Factors Influencing the Project ... 65
5.1.3 The Relation between Project Outcome and Team Heterogeneity ... 66
5.2 CULTURE ... 66
5.2.1 Individual Culture ... 66
5.2.2 Organizational Culture ... 67
5.2.3 Multicultural Teams: Positive and Negative Elements ... 68
5.3 PROJECT MANAGER’S INTERCULTURAL SKILLS... 69
5.3.1 Responsibility and Respect ... 70
5.3.2 Empathy ... 70
5.3.3 Amount of Information Delivered to Employees ... 70
5.3.4 Social Identity ... 71
5.3.5 Cultural Awareness ... 71
5.3.7 Multicultural Leadership ... 72
5.4 COMMUNICATION ... 72
5.4.1 External Factors, more than “noise” ... 73
5.4.2 The Cultural Differences’ Implications for Communication ... 74
5.4.3 Communication Barriers ... 75
5.4.4 Barriers’ Consequences ... 76
5.4.5 Solutions to Communication Barriers ... 76
5.5 CHAPTER SUMMARY ... 76
6 DISCUSSION ... 77
6.1 MAKING THE PROJECT PROCESS UNDERSTANDABLE ... 77
6.1.1 A Complex Environment ... 77
6.1.2 Project Managers’ Skills ... 77
6.2 INSTRUCTIONS PERCEIVED BY EVERYONE IN THE SAME WAY ... 79
6.2.1 The Implications of Cultural Differences ... 79
6.2.2 Clear and Accessible Communication ... 80
7 CONCLUSION ... 83
7.1ADVICE FOR ITPROJECT MANAGERS ...83
7.2CONTRIBUTIONS ... 84
7.3FUTURE RESEARCH ... 85
8 REFERENCES ... 87
9 EXHIBITS ... 92
EXHIBIT 1:QUESTIONS FOR INTERVIEWEES ... 92
Table of Figures
Figure 1 HR Quadriad in Project-based Organizations (2011) p. 2206 ... 8
Figure 2 Jungian Types (1986) p. 221... 9
Figure 3 Triangle Hofstede (1997) p. 6 ... 11
Figure 4 Onion Diagram, Hofstede (1997) p. 9 ... 12
Figure 5 Cross-cultural management (CCM) concept Canavilhas and Lifintsev (2017) p. 200 ... 14
Figure 6 Schematic diagram of a general communication system, 1963 ... 17
Figure 7 Internal Communication Matrix, by Welch and Jackson (2007) p. 185 ... 19
Figure 8 Abductive Research Process ... 22
Table of Tables
Table 1: Outline of Chapter 2 ... 7Table 2 Interviews Information ... 25
Table 3 Outline of Chapter 4... 30
Table 4 How IT project’s characteristics can be benefits and/or challenges .... 34
Table 5 Factors that influence project success besides communication ... 38
Table 6 Benefits and disadvantages of working in a multicultural IT project team ... 48
Table 7 Respondents’ Familiarity with the term vs the concept of Multicultural Leadership ... 52
1
1 Introduction
1.1 Background
Back in 2015 Elizabeth Harrin, an award-winning writer on project and program management topics, was already warning her readers of the importance and uniqueness of IT projects, answering to the question “why are IT projects different?”. Compared to other projects, characteristics like higher risks, the testing and prototyping phases, and the faster changes in requirements, make IT projects more unique and therefore require more elaborated planning and deeper skills to be managed efficiently and deliver a successful project.
One of the most crucial aspects, and yet still very difficult to always implement efficiently, in a project is communication. Jiang et al. (1996) during their research “Ranking of system
implementation success factors” found 11 success factors that can be transferred to the
overall project execution. One of those factors is to have adequate communication channels i.e. when “sufficient information is available on the project objectives, status, changes,
organizational coordination, clients’ needs, etc” (p.7).
The major failure factors in IT projects slightly vary from failure factors in other projects. The 9th Global Project Management Survey by PMI’s Pulse of the Profession in 2017 gathered data from 3,234 professionals around the world differing in organizational level and industry. One of the questions was “Of the projects started in your organization in the past 12 months
that were deemed failures, what were the primary causes of those failures?” (p.21). One of
the most relevant findings says that around 30% of project failure is due to inadequate or poor communication within the project group and by senior management. Other major failure factors are change in an organization’s priorities (41%), inaccurate requirements gathering (39%), and change in project objectives (36%). The same study concludes that “when proven project, program, and portfolio management practices are implemented,
projects are more successful” (PMI, 2017, p.2).
The above-mentioned study demonstrates that when delegating an IT project to a team, communication will have to be taken into consideration by the project manager (and by each team member) to strive for success. In the case the team happens to be multicultural, communication becomes more than a tool in project management (see section 1.1.2). It can be thought of as a requirement in the leader’s and the team’s soft skills. One ability that has to be strongly deployed is interpersonal communication (Wixom and Watson, 2001).
1.1.1 IT Projects
A project can be defined as a unique assignment with a specific goal, for a specific period, using specific resources and has a unique work arrangement. Because of its specificity, it requires a lot of planning and relationship skills among other factors. One key aspect for a project to succeed is its internal communication and another factor to take into consideration is the settings in which the communication occurs (Tonnquist, 2016).
A project is a temporary organization (Tonnquist, 2016) therefore very suitable for companies dealing with IT work (most of which have a beginning and an end). IT projects are unique in their own way, as they are constantly changing and adapting, making them a hard subject to study (Harrin, 2015). These projects are very complex, noted by Whitney et al. (2013) “They may run late or over budget though will only fail if technical expertise is
lacking to handle unexpected deviations from the plan” (p. 326). Due to the IT complexity
and constant changes needed, if the IT projects are not managed properly and communicated well, then getting towards the overall goal will be very difficult. Whitney also said that these complex projects typically have many unknowns and unclear scope, and difficulties may arise at the beginning of the project, making it more difficult for the project manager to help fix problems that are occurring in the project itself. It’s noticed that “30% responses related to
the format of internal communication” (Welch, 2012, p. 252), when speaking of emotional
responses in communication, meaning that 30% of respondents believed that there was an internal communication issue in the respective project. This is an important factor as this is noted in multicultural companies and is paired with cultural norms that make it more difficult for project managers to mitigate these complex communication issues.
In these projects, leadership is important and more specifically the multicultural leadership must be strong in these teams. Many of today’s organizations are multinational, transnational, or international. Regardless of being a virtual team or a non-virtual team, complications occur within the culture. Different cultures tend to grasp a different idea for solutions which improves both competitive advantage and the knowledge base of the company. However, without communication involved, these teams will have an issue when working together.
1.1.2 Multicultural Teams
Why is multiculturalism an important aspect of projects’ success, and why is it a competitive advantage all companies should invest in? Harvard Business Review and Kellogg Northwestern’s professor Katherine Phillips provide a vast set of benefits of having a multicultural team. Among the reasons we have the greater creativity of the team, the fact that they focus more on facts, and it is proven that diverse teams are smarter. Besides, when
it comes to public image, having diverse teams contributes to a more ethical and better-perceived business reputation (Rock and Grant, 2016; Mays, 2010).
Cultural issues arise in these multicultural teams and are one point of discussion for challenges that may interfere with the project's successful completion. “Culture should be
taken into account in three issues in any company: leadership/management, human resources unit (HR) and culture awareness/intelligence” (Linna et al., 2011, p. 1141).
Leadership and management issues include commitment and setting examples to employees, this all relates to the culture in the company’s strategy. Moreover, the management must be able to understand where the leadership is going wrong, and whether the issue is coming from communication, norms, or other values that the two parties (manager and team members) differ in.
A common thought of multicultural teams is the idea that the communication technologies used in these teams will reduce the need for intercultural understanding. However, Hofstede notes that it will not only be able to reduce the need for understanding. Rather it makes it easier for groups to create their moral circle, he states: “communication technologies may be
among the tools for intercultural learning” (2010, p. 392), showing that the idea of only
using communication through internet communication does not help the teams become knowledgeable about the cultural differences. This is one of the reasons why our research will focus on non-virtual teams’ communication, as virtual team communication between the project manager and the team tends to be skewed as cultural diversity can be much harder to be understood in these circumstances.
In multicultural teams the role of the project manager is crucial: they usually show great ease in performing multicultural leadership. Multicultural leadership can be described as a soft skill needed to be a good manager in cross-cultural teams.
1.2 Problem Statement
Early research has shown that humans are unique in their mental programming and that the cultural and corporate norms applying to one person, group, or society should be revisited before transferring them to another group of people (Hofstede, 1997). Since the organizations are becoming vastly multicultural with different norms and cultural differences among many employees, the issue of dealing with such differences in the workplace remains relevant and topical. Hofstede later developed his research in more modern settings, arriving at the conclusion that there are six cultural dimensions defining the different cultures (2010).
One of the dimensions elaborated by Hofstede is called Power Distance. This dimension analyses the acceptance level of the employees concerning the unequal distribution of the power: “the extent to which the less powerful members of institutions and organizations
within a country expect and accept that power is distributed unequally” (Hofstede, 2010, p.
61). Power Distance is interesting as it discusses the issues when employees believe they do not have equal power with their bosses or managers in the case of a project team. In this case, Hofstede referred to the employees who are seen as frequently afraid of disagreeing with their bosses. This is an important value to cover, as it focuses on the relationship of power between the employee and the manager in an organization, and it could relate to the communication dynamics within the team.
Continuing off culture norms in an organization, an internet survey by Dianna Bebenova (2014) had noticed that groups of international teams and a group of Bulgarian experts had believed that cultural clashes are at the heart of misunderstandings. These cultural clashes may come from different perspectives; however, Bebenova focuses on culture and every day communication within the organization rather than at the project level. Within these cultural clashes, it was noted by Lee et al. (2010) that organizations, “have very strong
organizational norms relative to knowledge sharing with strong management support” (p.
867). Lee et al. (2010) do discuss the importance of having strong norms within an organization, which comes from the management being able to support the team and help the project in the ways he/she can. This application to organizations is broad and does not bring the subject of management at a project level into the picture. However, it does show the connection between the management and employee levels of an organization, which is a similar structure to a project team.
According to Lee et al., the cultural norms are present in organizations and the employees’ cultural diversity impacts how the performance of the organization will function. Hayanthi and Rajandran (2017) had both identified this communication and conflict issue within a multicultural team using a sample of 430 IT employees. They found that cultural diversity has a direct impact on several factors such as behaviors and processes within the company: “cultural diversity impacts on job behavior, group behavior, performance, and
decision-making processes were significantly apparent” (p. 116). This shows how the issue of
performance is related to multicultural communication in a culturally diverse organization. Within the articles referenced above, we have seen many studies (Bebenova 2014; Hofstede 1997 and 2010; Lee et. al. 2017) that had targeted the cultural norms and the communication issue in multicultural organizations, however, a multicultural IT firm has a constantly changing environment, where ideas must be updated and released as soon as possible.
A framework by Ochieng and Price (2010) had been developed to support multicultural project performance, noting that building cultural understanding should come “through
leadership” (p. 539). Within the project groups that they had surveyed (construction
engineering projects) they had found several critical areas for cross-cultural action to improve team performance: cross-cultural communication, cross-cultural management, and leadership style. Ochieng and Prince’s framework is highly focused on construction multicultural teams, and it is just one of many studies (Matveev and Nelson 2004; Cheung et. al 2013; Hosseini et. al 2017; Ora 2016) that are not focused on an IT multicultural project team. However, the mentioned articles do talk about communication within multicultural project teams, but they leave out information for the IT sector.
Project-based IT organizations are in a field that is drastically changing our world today. Although previous research has developed frameworks for project-based organizations (Bredin and Söderlund, 2011), it did not explore the potential multicultural aspect of the teams and was mostly focused on human resources practices. Understanding the importance and dynamics of internal communication in multicultural IT projects and the ability of the project manager to adapt to a team with different cultural backgrounds, can contribute to both academic and managerial research.
As exemplified above, earlier literature has researched both the cultural differences’ implications for organizations as well as the challenges related to communication in projects. However, the authors found no evidence of empirical studies taking into consideration the following variables all at once: the multicultural background of employees, the communication issues within a group, and IT project settings.
1.3 Aim and Purpose
The aim of this research is to investigate how a project manager can communicate within a multicultural team in an IT project, to make the project process understandable and to make sure that the instructions are perceived by everyone in the same way regardless of their cultural differences and power distance. We would like to explore the current practices used by IT project managers when they deal with multicultural teams, to find potential patterns or a set of skills that could result useful for multicultural leadership. Understanding the differences in communication within a group could result in a possible solution to the issue of internal communication within a culturally diverse group. It would also contribute with further and deeper knowledge regarding the multiple cultures present in a project team. The research, therefore, aims to detect common or different points in the communication practices of project managers useful for the development of managerial contributions such
as a framework to apply or a set of skills to develop by managers in multicultural teams in an IT environment.
1.4 Research Questions
The study aims to answer the following questions:
• How do project managers communicate with IT project teams in multicultural settings to make the project process understandable?
• How do project managers provide instructions of a given task to the employees so that it can be perceived by everyone indifferently, regardless of their cultural differences and power distance to perform the task?
2 Theoretical Framework
This chapter presents theories and definitions about the IT project environment, aspects of culture, multicultural environments, and communication. The theoretical information is used to analyze the empirical data collected and draw conclusions that fit in academia. Table 1 shows the outline of this chapter.
Table 1: Outline of Chapter 2 2.1 Project-based Organizations 2.2 Culture
2.1.1 Project Team 2.2.1 Individual Culture
2.2.2 Organizational Culture 2.2.3 Multicultural Organizations 2.3 Project managers’ Intercultural
Skills 2.4 Communication
2.3.1 Cultural Intelligence 2.4.1 Communication Barriers
2.1 Project-based Organizations
Organizations can have different structural designs: three types of organizations are identified: functional, project-based, and matrix (a mix of the previous two). The main difference between a functional and a project-based organization is the authority over resources (Bredin and Söderlund, 2011). Therefore, a project-based organization will see all resources allocated to the execution of projects, and the firm has most likely no functional activity. Indeed, according to Hobday (2000), a project-based organization is “one in which
the project is the primary unit for production, innovation, and competition” and “there is no formal functional coordination across project lines” (p. 878).
A study conducted by Bredin and Söderlund (2011) focused on human resource management in project-based organizations, delivered a framework called the HR quadriad framework. This framework focuses on making HR specialists have more strategic and operational management. Figure 1 elaborates with the HR quadriad, which showcases the important roles that are necessary for a project-based organization. Within the HR quadriad, there are line managers, project workers, project managers, and HR specialists. Line managers carry out most of their work in different kinds of projects while project managers give input in evaluation and review processes that may occur in a project. A project manager will emphasize the responsibility of each employee to help them stay driven in their careers. Issues that come up for a project worker may come from “unclear assignment of
responsibilities among the different players in the HR organization” (Bredin and Söderlund,
differences in language and interpreted communication. This quadriad is generally understood as a group of four, in which each portion has interests or tasks that are in common and connect the employees.
Figure 1 HR Quadriad in Project-based Organizations (2011) p. 2206 Bredin and Söderlund (2011) had used a multiple case study of six engineering-intensive project-based firms. Each company was relatively large and were project-based organizations. However, the companies had differences in certain aspects that allowed a more comparative data analysis, with those differences Bredin and Söderlund could analyze the information from each company. By using interviews from employees, they could get a deep insight into how people were informal or formal in HR responsibilities within their role. Within these project-based organizations, Bredin and Söderlund had found that in cases of intra-functional project work, “line managers have the most prominent roles in the HR
quadriad” (2011, p. 2220) meaning that there is a heavy impact to human resources that
comes from the work ethic that is portrayed by the line manager. However, the authors noted that since line managers want to be more integrated within HR’s technological orientations, they would rather be more collaborative with HR specialists. Proposing the HR quadriad would allow more understanding of each role on an operational level, which would in return help the employees and the management systems in project-based organizations to understand different kinds of work systems in an organization.
The HR quadriad framework noted in Figure 1 is a strong framework to help understand the work connections in a project-based organization, however, it is focused on addressing only the four roles in an organization and their connection in the HR portion of a project-based organization. Bredin and Söderlund’s (2011) study did not mention the impact of a multicultural and diverse project team in an organization, where the project manager may have a different culture to a project team member, which may have an impact on the quadriad framework.
2.1.1 Project Team
A project team is defined by Scott-Young and Samson as a “group of independent individuals
who share responsibility for specific outcomes for their organization” (2008, p. 752). The
individuals in the IT sector would be the IT employees in these groups. A leadership position is present in a project team, and “the creative performance of teams is enhanced by
leadership interventions” (Rickards and Moger, 2000, p. 274). A leadership role is one that
“facilitates procedures or protocols for generating new outputs” (ibid., p. 274). The structure of project groups is dependent on the leadership role noted above, with interventions happening to improve effectiveness in establishing protocols.
The effectiveness of IT project teams all corresponds to “the manner in which people proceed
to deal with their task” (White and Leifer, 1986, p. 217). While IT professionals need a certain
technical skillset to be successful, the process skills, which are “the ‘how’ of task
accomplishment, the manner in which people proceed to deal with their task” (ibid., 1986,
p. 217) that each task team member should have are much wider. This point is spoken on by White and Leifer using a personality assessment test figure from Myers (1962).
Figure 2 Jungian Types (1986) p. 221
Figure 2 explains how professionals should expand their technical skill set to include Thinking, Intuitive, Feeling, and Sensing. In the feeling type, an employee must have good communication skills, be concerned with people’s feelings, be warm, and understand their personalities. This application to a multicultural organization has the same potential, as good communication skills and understanding the employees’ personal beliefs are core to successful management (Nah et. al, 2001; Losonci et. al 2011). White and Leifers collected data from 68 respondents with a 5 point Likert type scale, stating that from their data collection “team members with good communication skills and broad perspectives were
to communicate is an important factor. This model could be further developed for multicultural settings, especially concerning communication and the factors that affect it.
2.2 Culture
Reflecting on social science Hofstede discusses the existence of different levels in the same social reality and with a metaphor he identifies societies with gardens, organizations with bouquets, and individuals with flowers. This bucolic representation is meant to show how all three components are related and identically important for the understanding of one’s social environment (Hofstede, 2010).
In a vast part of his literature, Hofstede associated culture with nationality, therefore considering language, traditions, beliefs, and values differences mainly on a geographical basis. However, culture can also come from other environments, such as social groups or organizations and the respective subgroups and subcultures (Schein, 2010). Therefore the differences between national and organizational culture are significant and tackle especially the ideas of values and practices, where values are associated with the family, and by extension the nation, and are established and acquired before entering a firm, opposing to more superficial practices and of smaller scope (Hofstede, 2010). For better understanding the difference between national and corporate culture, the following theory has been divided into two sections: individual and organizational.
2.2.1 Individual Culture
Hofstede had developed a model with three levels of uniqueness in human mental programming: personality, culture, and human nature. Hofstede defines culture as a “collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one group or
category of people from another” (2010, p. 5). The collective programming of the mind is
stating that each individual is different and thinks differently. In groups, the individuals have similar thoughts but differ from other groups. Hofstede is acknowledged in the wider research community for his research within culture and organizations and has stated that culture is learned and not inherited since it derives from one’s social environment and not from their genes. He follows with a definition of human nature as “what all human beings
have in common: it represents the universal level in one’s mental software” (1997, p. 5).
Hofstede is saying that each human being is unique, but all human beings are equals with the ability to learn as much as they would want to. Lastly, the top-level is personality, which is a person's unique set of mental programming and how one individual will interact with other human beings. Hofstede (1997) illustrates the different levels for uniqueness in human mental programming that are cultural traits that must be understood.
Figure 3 Triangle Hofstede (1997) p. 6
According to Hofstede's model (figure 3), a unique individual will have an independent personality that they have learned. This personality is not cultural-specific. The persons would also have a culture that is learned and is specific to them. However, their human nature is inherited, it is passed down from one’s genes. Hofstede once compared human nature to an operating system. Looking at that statement, it shows that the basic living of humans, how a human operates, is inherited.
As Hofstede’s triangle shows, culture is an essential aspect that must be taken into account when trying to understand the dynamics of individuals. In a social group one will always find differing personalities and the same human nature, but what makes the difference between a homogeneous or heterogeneous group is the number of cultures found in it. If there are more than 2 cultures, the group can be called multicultural.
Following the triangle in an organization, Hofstede also noted the ideas of symbols, heroes, and rituals. Where “symbols are words, gestures, pictures or objects that carry a particular
meaning” (1997, p. 7). Heroes are persons, alive or dead, real or imaginary, who possess
characteristics which are highly prized in a culture, and who thus serve as models for behavior. Lastly, rituals are collective activities, technically superfluous in reaching desired ends, but which, within a culture, are considered as socially essential. (ibid., p. 8). The three ideas are core to the culture.
Figure 4 Onion Diagram, Hofstede (1997) p. 9
Figure 4, which is what Hofstede refers to as the onion diagram, shows the manifestations of culture at different levels of depth. These values are the interpretation of individuals’ perception and statements they believe are important to distinguish between desirable and desired.
According to Hofstede’s onion diagram, symbols, heroes, and rituals are all practices that work in parallel with each other. The practices within an organization must be acknowledged by the individual to understand the firm’s mindsets, while the company can use the triangle to dive deeper into the individual values of the employees. Also defined by Hofstede, “norms
are the standards for values that exist within a group or category of people” (p. 9) which is
relevant for the two figures noted above (Figures 3 and 4). Therefore, for an organization, it is important to understand the values within different cultural norms.
2.2.2 Organizational Culture
When the concept of organizational culture first arose in the English literature, around the 1960s, it was assimilated to the idea of organization climate, and more specifically Hofstede notes that the “shared perceptions of daily practices should be considered the core of an
organization’s culture” (Hofstede, 2010, p.348). Following the same pattern as for individual
culture, corporate culture is defined by Hofstede as “the collective programming of the mind
that distinguishes the members of one organization from others” (ibid., p.344) and by
collective he means, in this case, all the stakeholders involved with the company: clients, suppliers, competitors, authorities and the press. The only way multinational organizations dealing with multiple cultures can exist and succeed is by implementing effective shared practices. One cannot transfer nor generalize the individuals’ values (which are private and relate to gender, age, education and nationality among others), however, it is possible to come
to terms with the employees using the same worldwide practices “inspired by their national
origin (be it U.S., Japanese, German, Dutch, etc.) but that can be learned by employees from a variety of other national origins” (ibid., p. 348). The consequential integration of
individuals can be done through their understanding of corporate practices (symbols, heroes, and rituals).
Schein (2010) noted that culture in general is important, but specifically the general process of how culture is learned and evolved takes practice in an organizational situation. He defines the culture of a group as “the accumulated shared learning of that group as it solves its
problem of external adaptation and internal integration” (Schein, 2010, p. 6). The shared
learning of a group in an organization accumulates learning patterns by beliefs, values, and behavioral norms: these are adaptations that become integrated when studying the culture in the organization’s settings. These aspects are generalized in culture but are focused on organizational culture as culture is a shared product of shared learning, notes Schein. This means that the culture is very complex, and to understand a group’s culture, learning has to come in place within the workgroups, by creating analysis to understand the cultures in an organization and project setting.
Culture is a crucial matter for individuals as well as for organizations and it has been the center of a lot of relevant research (Schein 2010; Hofstede 1997 and 2010). It is important for the employers to understand the culture and its implications within the organization and to be aware of each employee’s individual culture, as individual cultures are all grouped in one multicultural organization. Such matters are valuable since some obstacles may occur due to the lack of knowledge surrounding employees' cultures.
2.2.3 Multicultural Organizations
To further explain the studies done around multicultural organizations the topic of diversity is fairly common. Cox defines the word diversity as not another name for minority group members of organizations, rather he defines it as “the variation of social and cultural
identities among people existing together in a defined employment or market setting”
(2001, p. 3). This social and cultural identity is what defines a diverse group, setting, or organization. In this instance, a diverse organization is respectively multicultural, as it is hosting many different social and cultural identities. Theories and research have been conducted about the presence of diversity in an organization, and many points towards workgroups subsequently creating obstacles to achieve high performance in these multicultural organizations (Kirchmeyer and Cohen, 1992; White, 1999,; Leung and Wang, 2015). This confirms that a multicultural organization does contain obstacles that arise with different cultures present. And therefore, we can transfer the same theory to multicultural projects.
Figure 5 Cross-cultural management (CCM) concept Canavilhas and Lifintsev (2017) p. 200
However, a diverse organization has many positive sides if managed correctly. Lifintsev and Canavilhas (2017) had noticed these possible advantages and researched them, conducting a survey within three different nations: Denmark, Portugal, and Ukraine. Following their survey, they had noticed that “in order to be [...] successful, companies must be prepared to
work in a global environment” (ibid., p. 200), creating a concept that can be accepted and
applied to any company today.
Figure 5 shows the cross-cultural management concept that was developed by Canavilhas and Lifintsev. The goal of this concept is to show the need for management within a diverse group and to suggest tools to achieve given objectives, for example, to communicate to get the most out of a team’s diversity. The figure also showcases obstacles that happen within a diverse group and outcomes that could happen if the obstacles are mitigated using the tools that Canavlihas and Lifinitsev have mentioned: communicational, organizational, and motivational. This concept does not show a method of applying the tools, rather categories that may need a method developed.
Within figure 5 we can see that when applying the CCM concept from Canavilhas and Lifintsev (2017), we gain some possible outcomes such as higher productivity, innovations, and a good reputation. However, when applying the CCM concept, obstacles such as communication, organization, and motivation in an organization will be easier to overcome. This point is recognized by Canavalihas and Lifintsev, however, it does not use data to prove that the obstacles would be mitigated. Rather Canavalihas and Lifintsev state that the obstacles have a possibility of being overcome. Their paper had conducted research to
understand that the lack of knowledge about other cultures, differences in values, and many other points are obstacles that can be overcome in a multicultural organization. However, it does not specify how communication, organization, and motivation can be applied to a multicultural organization to reach the management's objectives.
2.3 Project Managers’ Intercultural Skills
Generally, in projects, the manager is the main source of information and control. “Project
managers work with the project sponsors, the project team, and the other people involved in a project to meet project goals” (Schlwalbe, 2008, p.13). Since the project manager is
responsible for helping the team meet project objectives the idea of a project manager helping an information technology-focused company is very valid to this day. However, the project manager does face many issues regarding the communication infrastructure in a corporation. This is amplified while looking at multicultural IT companies. Studies have been done to find a more efficient way to improve communication in these multicultural environments. Vlahov et al. (2015) conducted a study focused on examining types and levels of international certification among project management professionals in different countries, “cultural
diversity as the main predictor of attitude similarities and differences joining certification process and using project management” (Vlahov et al., 2015, p. 469) showcasing the
importance of the competence of the project manager to focus on improving diversity in companies by similar attitudes. This application to multicultural environments strives where the ability to understand the project team is an important task and requirement for the project manager.
There are many different terms used to describe a multicultural organization, to specify the term we will use the definition from Penchanoà et al. (2018) stating that a multicultural team is a “group of people of different cultures and nationalities with long-term closed
relationships who work together towards a shared goal through new means of communication that also respects the principles for simplification of collaboration” (p. 395).
These teams are an interesting point of discussion because as the world adapts to more technological-based companies the issue of communication within a multicultural team arises. With the growth of IT multicultural teams, many internal communication issues arise in projects. Noted by Anbari, “To achieve project goals and avoid cultural
misunderstandings, project managers should be culturally sensitive” (2003, p.1). Within
the organization, the project manager plays an important role in creating a multicultural atmosphere by mitigating major issues that could occur. These multicultural teams consist of more complications than homogeneous groups because they “often misinterpret what the
colleagues say, and it slows down the progress of the team” (Penchanoà et al., 2018, p. 394).
culture, however, understanding the structure and values is an important idea that Penchanoà said is often overlooked to mitigate the issue of misinterpretation.
Anbari et al. conclude “multicultural project management can succeed through
culturally-aware leadership, effective cross-cultural communication, mutual respect, and reconciliation. Without them, it is destined to fail” (Anbari et al., 2009, p. n.a.). This means
that if a project is managed by understanding the different cultures and the communication within a project team, then the project will have a better chance of succeeding. If the project is not managed with the understanding of cultures and other soft skills such as reconciliation and respect, then the project has a high chance of failure.
The portion of communication in an IT multicultural project culture plays a huge role in increasing efficiency. However, it is paired with an issue of change in the project team. Culture is a big part of a project, and it is hard for organizations to change with culture, “attempts to change practices almost always meet with resistance, and the larger and more
mature the organization, the greater the resistance is” (Anthony et. al, 2014 p. 49).
Resistance happens because of the increase of cultural norms which is very important to keeping a team organized and having communication flow between the managers and the other people in the organization.
2.3.1 Cultural Intelligence
The authors Ang and Van Dyne (2008) highlight in their book how factors such as adaptation and cohesiveness are often a source of controversies, especially in multicultural teams. As a solution, they suggest two factors that can improve performance: global identity and cultural intelligence. Global identity is a type of social identity: “an individual’s sense of belonging to
groups nested within the global work environment of multinational organizations (i.e., MCTs), and the expectations associated with the roles of working in such groups” (Ang and
Van Dyne, 2008, p.178). Cultural Intelligence (CQ), is described as “the capability of an
individual to function effectively in situations characterized by cultural diversity” (ibid. p.
3). This type of intelligence aims at helping leaders, and individuals in general, when it comes to “coping with diversity and functioning in new cultural settings” (ibid. p. 4). A study showed (Moynihan et al., 2006) that the level of CQ increases proportionally to the time spent engaging in work in multicultural environments. This demonstrates that CQ is a skill that can be learned and developed, especially through cross-cultural learning. From here the interest for managers is to familiarize themselves with this concept. Like IQ or EQ (emotional intelligence), cultural intelligence can be assessed too, and some of the skills that represent a high CQ are the intercultural skills of world mindedness, “a global awareness of other
cultures and people” (Bonghez and Aziz, 2014, p. 8) or creativity when dealing with people
The above discussion of culture and project management suggests that global identity could be very beneficial if installed among team members as opposed to cultural intelligence which could be more valuable for the project manager’s role. Intercultural skills such as world-mindedness can be beneficial for the managers for both leading the team and solve potential issues related to the different cultures present in the team.
2.4 Communication
Generally, when we talk about projects, we imply teams, we talk primarily about people, therefore about relationships. This could imply that successful relationships partly contribute to making successful projects. One key element of successful relationships is communication. Wixom and Watson (2001) reflect on the importance of people during the implementation of a system, saying that people “can directly affect its success or failure” (p. 24). Indeed, the team needs to have a set of team skills that vary from technical to interpersonal abilities. The latter are majorly soft skills, in particular interpersonal communication.
In the early ‘60s, Shannon and Weaver (1963) developed a communication model (Figure 6) according to which communication is a flow of information from a sender to a receiver that gets encoded, passed through a channel, and then decoded at reception. The fact that the encoder and the decoder is not the same individual (added to the noise intervening during the channel phase), implies that the interpretation of a message can differ.
Figure 6 Schematic diagram of a general communication system, 1963 Although Shannon and Weaver’s communication model was widely used as a reference in earlier literature, nowadays it might be obsolete, essentially ought to the fact that communication cannot be seen as a linear flow, rather it involves and is affected by multiple factors coming from the external environment as well as from the interlocutor’s itself. Furthermore, the communication process happening inside an organization in much more complex due to the many factors intervening (Holtz, 2017; Alexandra-Mihaela et al., 2013).
2.4.1 Communication Barriers
In companies’ internal communication processes there can be broad aspects that can interfere with communication (Holtz, 2017), however, in a team challenges can arise at a minor scale, the individual scale. Brett et. al. (2006) considered such challenges and identified four major barriers to communication that can cause multicultural conflicts and sabotage team success:
• Direct versus indirect communication
The meaning of something can be expressed in an implicit or explicit way according to the culture. For instance, Western people will say openly when there is a problem that needs to be solved; on the other hand, non-western people would rather present the problem with a hypothetical question such as “what would we do if this was happening?”.
• Trouble with accents and fluency
As also noted by Halverson and Tarmizi (2008), English is the international business language and a lot of multicultural teams will probably use it daily. However, situations such as poor language proficiency or strong foreign accents can be an obstacle for both interlocutors: the one listening might not understand and the one talking might not find the words to express in detail his/her thoughts. This can lead to frustration and very harmful misunderstandings in relationships.
• Differing attitudes toward hierarchy and authority
Usually, multicultural teams have a rather flat structure, hence the responsibilities are well distributed among all team members. This can be challenging and sometimes humiliating for individuals used to hierarchical culture (who will naturally behave in a way that brings forward their status) towards the individuals used to a more egalitarian culture. Sometimes such actions can even be interpreted as lack of respect and can establish serious tensions within the group.
• Conflicting decision-making norms
When it comes to decision-making, cultural differences are likely to diverge the most. The two aspects that differ the most are usually the speed to which a decision is made, and the amount of analysis and information needed before making a choice. Brett et al. suggest two solutions: “to make minor concessions on process—to learn to adjust to and
even respect another approach to decision making” (p. 92) or to be explicit about the
needs, for example the need for more time to see the big picture of the project.
However, looking at the four barriers presented above, it is clear that there are categories other than communication to consider when conflicts arise, such as decision-making norms.
Furthermore, Brett et al. note that challenges on multicultural teams arise from the different styles of communication, creating barriers to effective teamwork, such as reduced information sharing and/or interpersonal conflict (2006, p. 90).
When discussing project failure factors Alexandra-Mihaela et al. state that “most of the
communication process in a project is usually done without proper planning” (2013, p. 3).
What usually helps managers with planning are matrices or models to follow. Many authors have elaborated Internal Communication Matrices, the most famous of which is probably the one by Welch and Jackson (2007), in Figure 7.
Figure 7 Internal Communication Matrix, by Welch and Jackson (2007) p. 185 Following this very one, our research fits in the first dimension that the British authors call “Internal line management communication”: a two-way information flow essentially between line manager and employees. In our case, the line manager’s role is covered by the project manager. According to Welch and Jackson, part of the content covered during meetings of the first dimension is about personal impact. When working with a multicultural team, the personal impact will be much more diverse and therefore would require further development of the above-mentioned matrix.
Indeed, cultural factors such as language, values, beliefs, traditions, societal norms, and personal backgrounds influence the way communication is perceived and valued by individuals. It is in such settings that misunderstandings are more likely to arise and can be much more harmful to the project execution. Very often poor communication is at the root of misunderstanding, and this -especially if repeated- will result in a lack of trust, which in turn will bring to overall non-satisfactory project management (Evaristo, 2003).
Other early studies suggest that cross-cultural communication affects team members’ perception of communication competence in a multicultural organization. Marquardt and
Hovrath (2001) had discussed this point and conducted a study with data collected from 124 upper and middle managers, discovering that “cross-cultural communication competence
accounts for 20% of the variance in the performance level of multicultural teams” (2001, p.
n.a.). Showing that multicultural team performance is impacted by cross-cultural communication, and the effects of the cultural diversity on performance aligns with previous studies that have been conducted around this subject.
Communication has been proven to be an essential ingredient for a project’s success. It is also a source of challenges when working in multicultural settings, mostly due to the cultural diversities that concern communication perception and practices. An aspect that has been rarely studied is the communication in multicultural teams concerning IT projects. The merger of these three aspects might result in a few different components to be aware of for the leadership, as compared to the internal communication models generalizable at a corporate level.
3 Methodology
This chapter presents the way the study was conducted, presenting the methods and tools used. The chapter includes the practical components as well as the philosophical approach and ethical considerations for the study.
3.1 Research Philosophy
The research philosophy identifies and shapes the approach, strategy, and methods to use in the study. Our research is based on understanding the ways a project manager can adapt communication internally within a multicultural team in an IT project environment. Therefore, the most applicable philosophy for this research is a constructivist ontology. Constructive ontology can be described as a subjective view of the world where the researchers understand that the phenomena observed can change with time and that reality is socially constructed (Bryman and Bell, 2011). In this study, the researcher subjectively interprets the reality constructed by the project manager. Therefore, the philosophy that the authors adopt is the epistemological position of interpretivism, because they study subjective experiences. Interpretative epistemology’s focus is brought on individuals within an organization (ibid.). The research is consequently conducted through the perspective of project managers and project team members.
3.2 Research Approach
The common methodologies used in research are either inductive, deductive, or abductive approaches. The inductive approach focuses on gathering data without having a defined theoretical framework, analyzing them and creating new theories accordingly (Thornhill et. al 2009). The deductive approach aims at comparing the results found with existing theories. It also requires a clear selection of theories before the study (Bryman and Bell, 2011). The abductive approach allows to avoid the limitations of deductive and inductive approaches. In fact, it is useful when the data gathered are not enough to create a completely new and generalizable theory, and it leaves more freedom in the search of relevant theories accordingly to the findings. For these two reasons, this research adopts an abductive approach: the findings are not generalizable for a matter of scope (10 interviews) and method used (see section 3.4 Methods). Furthermore, the empirics provide evidence supporting previous theories or they suggest some modifications to existing frameworks. To explain further the process, Figure 8 shows how we proceeded with the gathering of data and theories.
Figure 8 Abductive Research Process
The authors started the research process by researching broad theories, such as project-based organizations, culture, and communication. The broad theories created a foundation for the research. After the initial theoretical research, the authors collected data from interviewees and found more interesting and precise concepts, such as cultural intelligence, power distance, project teams, and multicultural leadership. The concepts were then used to gather more theoretical material about the specific categories. After the theoretical chapter was developed even further, the authors set the research aim and questions. In this way, the questions were more elaborated and fitted better in the theoretical context. For instance, in the second research question we were able to add the dimension of power distance. Then the data was analyzed and compared to all the theories researched, which led to answer the research questions. The authors ultimately concluded the thesis noting the contributions and gave recommendations on paths towards which to continue research in communication dynamics of multicultural IT project teams.
3.3 Research Strategy
The strategy chosen to conduct the research was a multiple case study strategy, where each project team we studied is a case. This project-based strategy consists of exploring in a detailed manner specific cases such as a “community, organization, or person” (Bryman and Bell, 2011, p. 41). A case study is defined by Yin as an empirical inquiry that investigates a contemporary phenomenon in depth and within its real-world context (2017). This study focuses on bringing specific information about communication in multicultural IT teams. We wanted to diversify the sample by interviewing managers and employees coming from different countries and working in different companies. Therefore a multiple case study strategy would be an appropriate method for this research. A multiple case study is used because of the variance of data gathered from multiple interviewees that work at different companies. The data is deeply grounded in varied empirical evidence and helps create a robust theory due to the differences among each interview (Eisenhardt and Graebner, 2007). Each case is represented by the project team of each interviewee (see details about each interviewee in Table 2). The source of information used in this research comes from the
employees or project managers established in the respective organizations. The scope of the cases is determined by each individual, as each interviewee is from a different company and may have a different perspective to contribute with. This study is exploring the phenomenon of communication within an IT multicultural project team, and the questions asked to the Interviewees, which are shown in the data collection section of this chapter, show the in-depth questions used.
An idiographic approach is used towards our multiple case study, which is when “the
researcher is usually concerned to elucidate the unique features of the case” (Bryman and
Bell, 2011, p. 60). The paper is researching the information concerning the IT multicultural project teams and the conclusions from our interviews are findings of the specific case of multicultural communication in IT projects. Furthermore, due to time and resource constraints, a multiple case study suited the situation.
3.4 Method
This research focuses on providing a deeper understanding of the communication happening in IT multicultural project teams. To obtain primary data, a qualitative method was chosen. The decision of adopting a qualitative method over a quantitative method comes mostly from seeking an in-depth understanding of attitudes and views relative to communication currently present among project managers and team members. In fact, a quantitative method is more suitable in situations where one wants the findings to be objective and/or generalizable. Because of the lack of data and the small sample size, a quantitative method would not be suitable for our research as it will not be accurate enough to create a framework that would apply to all IT multicultural project teams. A qualitative method, on the other hand, allows a more subjective analysis of the results (Bryman and Bell, 2011). Since one of the study’s core fields is individuals’ culture, the choice of a subjective method seems more suitable. Despite the pertinency of a qualitative method, in this case, one cannot omit the limitations to such a method: it is indeed often criticized as lacking transparency, delivering results difficult to replicate, and presenting problems of generalizations (Bryman and Bell, 2011). For overcoming such limitations, the authors clearly state in the methodology chapter in what way the study was conducted and by being aware of the above.
3.5 Sampling
This research focuses on understanding what communication systems are currently being used in multicultural IT project teams and identify management practices that can aid the project manager to administer an effective and efficient team with minimal communication issues. For this reason, the case sampling was done purposively to conduct interviews with a mix of project managers and employees of a project team in the IT sector. Since the
population (the total number of project managers and employees in IT teams) is unknown and the time and resources are limited, the authors used non-probability sampling. Furthermore, the sampling was purposeful: before the beginning of the research, the authors knew whom they wanted to interview (IT project managers and employees) and what information they wanted to gather; for instance, special information about the communication dynamics within culturally diverse project teams. Due to the difference in the status of the individuals interviewed and their different nationalities, the sampling is heterogeneous. Another characteristic of the sampling is its volunteer aspect: after pre-identifying some stakeholders, the researchers contacted personal acquaintances to gain more contacts with the snowball sampling. This allowed the sample to be less biased by the personal researchers’ acquaintances. The contact and scheduling of interviews were established by email. The researchers made contact with 19 individuals of which 10 replied affirmatively.
3.6 Data collection
In order to collect empirical data, the researchers used the qualitative sampling method of interviews. One of the benefits of running interviews is the deep insight one can get of the attitudes and opinions of the respondents, allowing a detailed understanding of the empirics. The research focusing on social traits such as relationships and communication between individuals, a subjective point of view suits better than an objective. However, the objectivity of the empirics could be useful, especially for possible generalizations of the findings. Another limitation is the number of Interviewees, which will not be representative nor significant for any specific social group. However, according to Kvale and Brinkmann (2009), a number between 5 - 25 interviews is enough, considering the heterogeneity of the population. The choice of not contacting more people was mainly due to the lack of time available for the research to be carried out.
The questions asked to the Interviewees are listed in Exhibit 1. The questions have been gathered in 4 sections: general, IT, communication, and multiculturality, in order to guide the respondents and help them define the context in which they should answer the questions. Table 2 below shows the number and detail of the interviews.
Table 2 Interviews Information Interview
n° Country person interviewed Position of the Designation of the person
Duration of the interview
1 USA Technical Architect Employee 32 min
2 USA Senior Consultant Employee 47 min
3 USA Software Developer Employee 37 min
4 USA Software Engineer Employee 45 min
5 ITALY Senior Consultant Project Manager 57 min
6 ITALY CEO Project Manager 35 min
7 FRANCE Researcher Project Manager 1h 15
8 FRANCE Technical Director Project Manager 1 h
9 FINLAND IT Project Manager Project Manager 40 min
10 UGANDA CEO Project Manager 57 min
The interviews were semi-structured so that the researchers could produce an interview guide, with previously prepared questions, but at the same time during each interview, they were free to add follow-up questions when considered relevant for the study (Bryman & Bell, 2011). This method allowed the authors to get more insights and truthful data by leaving enough freedom to the Interviewees to formulate the answers in the way they preferred.
The interviews were carried out via video call (Zoom, Teams, WhatsApp or Skype) or phone call, according to the Interviewees’ preferences. Due to the distance mode activated for almost all working activities, the authors were calling individually from their residencies and they dispatched the interviews according to the geographical zones (taking into account time difference between Europe and the United States). The advantage of proceeding this way was time effectiveness, but on the other hand, the absence of human contact limited the understanding of the Interviewees’ indirect communication, especially body language. The researchers however tried to interpret the tone of voice as well as the vocabulary used to decrypt any relevant sign of indirect communication. Another benefit is the stress level being low for the Interviewee who does not have to be physically in front of the questioner and might feel more comfortable in giving more honest answers. The drawbacks of interviews via calls are the possible issues related to the connection and/or the recorder device. The researchers tried to avoid such impediments by testing all material beforehand and having a back-up plan ready.
In exhibit 2 are introduced the participants to the interview, by presenting their professional roles and responsibilities, their professional background, and the settings in which they
