CHAPTER 19
INTERNATIONAL PROJECTS

In this chapter I look at international projects, that is, projects involving parties from two or more countries. This is not strictly a governance issue, but is a significant type of project which I think deserves space. These projects have very specific problems, particularly the problem of cultural fit. Indeed, the term international projects can involve a multitude of different types of projects with a range of features. I consider international projects and their management. I describe different types of international projects and their characteristics. I then list common problems in the management of international projects and describe how to overcome them. I describe the issue of cultural fit and the work done by Gred Hofstede and what it says about the approach of different nationalities to the management of projects. I then describe how to work with an international project team and international partners.

19.1 TYPES OF INTERNATIONAL PROJECT

International projects come in many forms.

Projects in Your Own Country for a Foreign Client

There are many reasons why a foreign client may want to make an inward investment into your country: to develop new markets, make use of local expertise, or gain access to raw materials. In this case, you will have the familiarity of working in your own environment, within your own legal system, and with familiar subcontractors. The main difficulty arises from working with a client of a different culture and with an unfamiliar way of doing business. It will be important to understand their different approaches and to try to accommodate them. You may expect that since they are working on your own home ground, the client should make an attempt to respect your local culture and ways of working. However, it can still be valuable to understand their culture, so that you can understand their ways of working, not unwittingly offend them, and also help them fit into your environment.

Projects in Your Own Country Using Foreign Contractors

You may use a foreign contractor because you need to buy expertise not available in your own country, or because they are cheaper than local alternatives, or because you are compelled to do by European or other international competition laws. As a contractor working for a foreign client you may be required to use a subcontractor nominated by the client. The problems are again mainly ones of different cultures and ways of working. Now you may expect even more that the supplier will respect your way of doing business, especially if they want to break into your local market. However, it can still be valuable to understand their approaches just to avoid any misunderstandings (see Example 19.1).

Example 19.1 Working as a contractor overseas

I once spoke to an American partner of Accenture, who told me that when they sent a consultant to an assignment in mainland Europe the consultant was sent on a two-week language and cultural awareness course. If they were being sent to Britain they were not but he felt they should be. English and American English are different, and sometimes significantly so. (You tell the English to walk on the pavement and they will walk on what the Americans call the sidewalk; you tell Americans to walk on the pavement and they will walk in the middle of the road on what the English call the tarmac.) On a visit to the United States, I found myself asking questions by stating what I thought to be the answer, but having it interpreted as a statement of my belief by my hosts. (I have the same problem in Holland and China, but not in France.) I commented on this to one of my hosts, and she said she found it arrogant to ask a question by stating what I thought to be the answer, yet it is normal behaviour in England and France.

Projects in a Foreign Country for Which You Are the Client

Now we are working in a different business environment and legal system to which we have to adapt. We may expect our suppliers to respect our cultural traditions, and as the client we may have some influence in that respect. However, it may still be necessary to understand local traditions, just because we are in the minority, and because we may unwittingly cause offence (Examples 19.2 and 19.3).

Example 19.2 Respecting local traditions versus expecting your traditions to be respected (1)

Under American federal law, American companies are forbidden from giving bribes anywhere in the world. Under German federal law, German companies are forbidden from giving bribes in Germany. But if they are operating in a part of the world where offering "commission" is part of standard business practice, then they are allowed to pay it, and it is treated as an allowable business expense for tax purposes in Germany. Employees of American companies have told me that when working overseas one of the reasons for forming joint ventures is to pay the "commissions" via the joint venture partner.

Example 19.3 Respecting local traditions versus expecting your traditions to be respected (2)

While running a course in Malta, I spoke to a Maltese who had just completed an assignment with the U.S. Navy in Naples. He had been employed as a consultant, but effectively worked as an employee of the U.S. Navy and so was bound by their ways of doing business. He said that he had been told that he would be sacked if he accepted so much as a cup of coffee from a contractor as that could be interpreted as a bribe and he certainly was forbidden to pay anything that could be interpreted as a bribe. He said it was virtually impossible to work in Naples without lubricating the wheels with commissions, and an Italian contractor would be deeply offended if you refused coffee they offered you.

Working as a Contractor for a Foreign Client in Their Country

You may have been employed for your expertise, you may have been used because your own government provided aid and required that a certain element of the contract should be procured in your country. The aid may even have been in the form of services rather than cash. As well as problems of cultural differences, risks you may encounter include:

The financial risks and credibility stakes may be high.

As the client is employing you for your expertise, they may not know very much about the project and the scope may not be well defined.

Because of this lack of knowledge the client may not have full confidence in the project.

Project management and interfaces with the client may be executed in a foreign language.

The client may have a significantly different cultural background and not be confident in your project management techniques.

With fewer shared cultural and commercial assumptions, the chances of a damaging misunderstanding arising are much greater.

A solution to many of these problems is to include local nationals in your project team. This has the benefit of enabling you to avoid many of the language, cultural, and social difficulties as well as opening doors for you in the country. Under normal circumstances you will be expected to work within local traditions (see Examples 19.1, 19.2, and 19.3). The exception is aid projects, where as a representative of the donor country you may have greater expectations of the locals conforming to your ways of working (except see Example 19.4).

Example 19.4 A foreign aid failure

The Jamaica Maritime Training Institute project lasted for more than 13 years with Norwegian aid money. The project was originally planned for three years. However, as the project neared its original end date, local job opportunities for the Jamaican staff were limited. Hence, they had no desire to complete the project. This was well understood by the local authorities. The prevailing prognosis, after 13 years of project work, was that at least another five to seven years of work are needed before the original goal, as it was formulated, could be reached. This did not even include the development of a counterpart staff competent enough to take over administrative and technical responsibilities!

Projects in a Country for Clients Also Alien to the Country

This is likely to be for a multinational company used to operating worldwide. Such a company is likely to be fully aware of most of the related problems. When it decides to proceed with an international project it is usually after stringent research and development studies and most of the main potential pitfalls have been addressed. A typical example of such a project might be the building of a refinery for an international oil company in the Middle East. Characteristics of such projects might be:

Well-defined project scope.

Stringent contractual and funding conditions.

The client will closely monitor all aspects of the project in an extremely professional way.

The client may well insist on various aspects of the project being carried out in a very prescribed way and may require you to utilise some of its existing facilities.

Contract law may be that of the country where most of the work is to be executed.

The client will most likely have a much better appreciation of the overall context and factors affecting the potential success or failure of the project than you will. It is therefore essential that you talk to them at all times, maintain their confidence, and use their expertise.

Multinational Joint Ventures

This type of project is often the most difficult to execute, not from the technical viewpoint, but from the complexity of dealing with a number of different national bodies each with its own aims and priorities. Features of these projects include:

Complex multinational contractual and funding arrangements.

Multinational project teams.

Relatively poor project definition at the outset.

A requirement to observe and maintain national interests.

The project may be spread out over a wide geographical area if each participating nation expects to execute its own share of the work.

Good communications are of paramount importance.

With this type of project it is essential that the organization structure is set up correctly and implemented from the start. Lines of responsibility, authorities, and demarcations must be clearly understood at all levels. A good principle is to ensure truly multinational teams are established in each major work location. This provides an informal communication facility between nations and helps to avoid cultural and language problems.

19.2 THE PROBLEM OF INTERNATIONAL
PROJECTS

Having considered some of the types of international projects, we can identify some of the problems that arise in their management. In Sec. 4.4, I defined a virtual team as one with a boundary within the team that increases the cost of communication across the boundary. Many of those boundaries create problems on international projects.

Culture

The main problem is one of culture. Our approach to personal relationships, doing business, and project management are determined by our basic mental programming. The lily pond model (Fig. 19.1) illustrates that our behaviour is the visual representation of our attitudes and beliefs, which is determined by our values and basic programming, which in turn is based on our unquestioned assumptions about what is right and wrong. Gerd Hofstede¹ identified that our assumptions are based on our family, education, linguistic, gender, social, regional, religious, and ethnic background and these influence our behaviour as individuals, in groups, and as professionals. When working on international projects we need to understand the approaches of different cultures, to be able to work with people and predict behaviours, and not to give and take offence. The next section deals with this in greater detail.

FIGURE 19.1 The lily pond model.

Distance

The second problem arises from the degrees of distance. The most obvious dimension of distance is geographic remoteness, but there can be other dimensions of distance as well:

Time zone: It can be easier for someone in Britain to work with someone in South Africa, and someone in New York to work with someone in Argentina than people in New York and Britain to work together, because of overlapping working hours in the first two cases.

Organizational behaviour: In organizations that encourage individualistic behaviour or strongly functional working, people working in adjacent offices can be remote from each other (see Example 19.5); new people joining must learn the language, jargon, and ways of working before they can work effectively (see Example 19.6).

Language and culture: These cause degrees of distance as discussed above (Fig. 19.2).

Professions: Each comes with its own jargon and mental models, which can cause as much remoteness as language and culture.

FIGURE 19.2 Degrees of distance.

Modern technology such as e-mail, fax, video conferencing, satellite telephones, and Internet and intranet are helping to eliminate some degrees of difference and reinforce others (see Example 19.5 again). Indeed, people are using modern technology to achieve 24-hour working on design projects with people working in India, London, and California sharing a common database. Firms from Europe and North America are also having design work, computer programming, and even secretarial services provided from India where wage rates are low but productivity and quality are high.

Example 19.5 Organizational remoteness (1)

When I worked at Henley Management College, there was something of a ritual of morning and afternoon coffee. It can be a useful way of networking within the organization and asking someone a question as an alternative to telephoning them or sending an e-mail. A visiting academic from North America commented on this and said that in his university he did not see most of his colleagues from one day to the next. He came in at 8.30 in the morning, went straight to his office, came out only to give lectures or go to the library, and went home at 5.00 in the evening or even later. Academic research assessment techniques which reward individual performance greater than team performance reinforce this behaviour.

Example 19.6 Organizational remoteness (2)

My sister-in-law on joining the consultants McKinsey was handed four typed pages of acronyms and told to learn them by the next day, or she would not be able to work effectively.

Organization, Management, and Communication

International projects often require more complicated organization structures in order to deal with a number of factors including:

Collaboration with joint venture partners

Special requirements from funding agencies

National interests, and the requirement to use local labour and suppliers

Local administrative requirements

Providing facilities for ex-patriot personnel

Productivity and Logistics

The need to use local labour, transport, or storage can cause difficulty. Working abroad you may employ local labour for nonspecialised functions as it will be cheaper. Sometimes, especially where working for the government, it may be a contractual requirement to make a given percentage of the costs sourced locally. The productivity of local labour may be lower. There is a rule of thumb that the lower the wage rates of a country, the lower the productivity, sometimes such that unit labour costs are higher. (One major exception is India where productivity rates tend to be as high as Western countries.) You also need to be aware of local working patterns (see Example 19.7). Another difficulty can be local social security and employment legislation (see Example 19.8). To cope with this it can be a good idea to employ all local labour through a local joint venture partner.

Example 19.7 Local working hours

I ran a three-day course in Egypt. I asked the local organizers what working patterns I should have during the day, and they said whatever I normally did in the United Kingdom. On the first day we started at 09.00 and broke for lunch at 12.30, returning at 13.30. The audience were asleep for most of the afternoon. I asked what the problem was and they said that their normal day was to start at 07.00 and work for seven hours until 14.00. They would then have lunch followed by a siesta in the heat of the day. We did that on days two and three of the course.

Example 19.8 Local employment law

Someone on a course at Henley Management College had worked on a project to build a new airport in Nairobi. At the end of the four-year project they found that under Kenyan employment law it was almost impossible to sack someone if you had employed them for more than 12 months continuously—difficult if you are working on a transient project.

Local Legislation and Regulation

Finally, work in a country often has to be done under the law of that country, including:

Contract law

Business law

Employment law

Health and safety law

Environmental protection and planning regulations

Commissions

For this reason it can often be critical to employ a local agent who can ensure that you meet all the local requirements. In the Middle East having a local agent in itself is a necessity to guide you through local business practices and to pay appropriate commissions. In some countries it is a legal requirement for doing business in that country.

19.3 MANAGING CULTURE

Culture is the most significant problem on international projects.

Dimensions of Cultural Difference

There have been many studies into the nature of cultural difference.^1,2,3 Table. 19.1 shows some of the dimensions identified by Gerd Hofstede¹ and Fons Trompenaars.²

Hofstede. Gerd Hofstede¹ identified four parameters of cultural difference:

1. Power distance: The extent to which the less powerful person in a society accepts inequality in power and considers it as normal.

2. Individualism: The extent to which individuals primarily look after their own interest and the interest of their immediate family (husband, wife, and children).

TABLE 19.1 Dimensions of Culture due to Hofstede¹ and Trompenaars²

Dimension	Measures
Power distance	Respect for authority
Individualism vs. collectivism	Personal ambition vs. group cooperation
Internal vs. external	Motivation for self or society
Achievement vs. ascription	Importance of status and performance
Uncertainty avoidance	Risk aversion
Masculinity	Differentiation between gender roles
Attitude to time	Attitude to deadlines
Short term vs. long term	Attitude to investment returns and results
Universalist vs. particularist	Ethics, principles of right and wrong
Specific vs. diffuse	Attitude to legal processes and personal trust
Neutral vs. emotional	Willingness to express feelings

3. Uncertainty avoidance: The extent to which people are nervous of situations they consider to be unstructured, unpredictable, or unclear, and the extent to which they try to avoid such situations by adopting strict codes of behaviour and a belief in absolute truths.

4. Masculinity: The extent to which the biological existence of two sexes is used to define different roles for men and women.

Some of Hofstede's findings are plotted in Figs. 19.3 and 19.4 (Regions and countries are represented by the codes shown in Table 19.2). In Fig. 19.3, developing countries and

FIGURE 19.3 Country plot against Hofstede's cultural factors power distanceand individualism against assumed preferred behavioural attitude scores within each project stage.

FIGURE 19.4 Country plot against Hofstede's cultural factors uncertainty avoidanceand masculinity against assumed preferred behavioural attitude scores within each project stage.

TABLE 19.2 Country Ranking of Fitness for Project Management

No	Country	Code	Initiation Score	Planning Score	Execution Score	Closure Score	Total Score
1	Germany	GER	6.10	2.17	2.17	2.49	12.93
2	Italy	ITA	5.56	3.86	3.86	2.43	15.71
3	France	FRA	5.10	4.80	4.80	3.61	18.31
4	USA	USA	5.23	5.03	5.03	4.28	19.57
5	Netherlands	NET	5.89	4.66	4.66	4.44	19.65
6	Norway	NOR	6.70	4.28	4.28	5.09	20.35
7	Gt Britain	GBR	5.45	5.12	5.12	5.26	20.95
8	Arab Nations	AR	5.48	5.11	5.11	6.49	22.19
9	East Africa	EAF	6.07	4.57	4.57	7.13	22.38
10	Sweden	SWE	6.57	5.17	5.17	6.41	23.32
11	Denmark	DEN	7.18	5.15	5.15	6.44	23.92
12	Japan	JAP	8.10	5.48	5.48	5.62	24.68
13	Thailand	THA	7.43	5.16	5.16	7.43	25.18
14	West Africa	WAF	6.74	5.91	5.91	8.21	26.77
15	Philippines	PHI	5.59	6.80	6.80	8.73	27.92
16	Malaysia	MAL	6.07	7.93	7.93	10.04	31.97

Western countries form two district groups. The former are in the first quadrant implying a greater respect for authority and society than in Western countries. In Fig. 19.4, there is no pattern meaning that "masculinity/femininity" and "uncertainty avoidance" are unrelated to national wealth.

Attitudes to Time. We all know stories about Southern Europeans being free with time and Northern Europeans being punctual. (I am convinced it is due to the length of the day in winter; you can't afford to waste short winter days in Northern Europe, at least you couldn't if you were a farmer 500 years ago.) Attitudes to time reveal different cultural programming (see Example 19.9). Germans believe events are controlled by planning and respecting deadlines. Things have to be ordered. Time is limited and cannot be wasted and lost. Keeping people waiting is insulting; it implies they are not busy and therefore unimportant. A project leader meets few problems stressing the importance of missed deadlines. Plans are carefully thought out and followed.

Example 19.9 The Northern European dance card

I have had discussions about different attitudes to time with a Chinese friend who was born in China and lives in Beijing but studied for many years in England. She is aware of both cultures. When I visit Beijing, I like to arrange to meet up with my friends and colleagues. I start contacting them about a month in advance to arrange when to meet up. I have a limited number of evenings there and want to tightly schedule them all. But when I contact my Chinese friends they say, "Great that you are coming. When you arrive, give me a ring and we will arrange to meet." I get frustrated because I want it all arranged in advance, like ducks in a row. But the Chinese like to arrange their social lives at the last minute.

I liken it to a dance card. When I was 16 and 17 and went to the New Zealand equivalent of the high school prom, we were given a dance card. All the music to be played during the evening was prescribed, and we were given a card with it listed. We had to arrange in advance who we were going to dance each number with, and were only allowed three dances with the partner we had come with. It all had to be tightly scheduled; the ducks in a row. It is very Northern European. It would not appeal to the Chinese—and I don't think it appealed to 17-year-old New Zealanders either, even in 1970.

In other parts of the world, the Middle East and Japan, time is seen through much longer lenses. It flows organically and things come together at appropriate moments. This view does not discount persistence in effort and thriftiness with resources. Emphasis is placed on doing things at once, particularly getting relationships established. Doing things as they arise, means interruptions which derail forward plans. Deadlines are seen as movable because it is more important to ensure relevant issues are attended to when they occur so that continuity is maintained. Imagine, then, the confusion when a Japanese company attempting to establish a project with an American organization feels that a meeting to sort out how to proceed is urgent. They try to arrange it for two days time but are told that senior American executives do not have time in their busy schedules within the next two months! The Japanese believe the Americans are not taking them and the relationship seriously. The Americans think the Japanese do not realise how busy they are running other aspects of their business.

What Needs Defining. Some cultures like everything spelt out in detail (see Example 19.9 again), assuming that unless things are stated they become woolly and a source of disputes. This view is adversarial, concentrating on areas that may cause dispute. A different perspective is to focus on the common interest at the centre of most projects, the Chinese guan xi. Building sufficient contractual infrastructure to provide shape and a way of working is thought to be important. The conflicts of interest are expected to be worked out as they occur to meet the specific circumstances. The aim is to build and preserve a relationship that will realise the project's purpose. The English project manager brought up in the adversarial tradition can expect a pragmatic approach to contracting when working with French partners. It does not mean that they are commercially careless or not astute business people.

Cultural Profile of Project Managers

We often assume project management is a discipline with universal rules applied uniformly worldwide. This views project management as a systems science with mechanistic systems applied universally. Project management is a social science, some people even describe it as an art, which will be applied differently by different cultures. Svein-Arne Jessen⁴ proposed that the requirements for power difference, individualism, and uncertainty avoidance varied throughout the life cycle. He deduced the level of each required at each of four stages (Table. 19.3 and Figs. 19.3 and 19.4.) (Masculinity he assigned a median score throughout since it appeared to have no effect on performance.)

During initiation, power distance should be high, as this is when the manager must give priority to the requirements and direction of top management (or the client). Individualism should also be high, as there is a need for creativity and innovative thinking during this stage; uncertainty avoidance should be low, as feasibility demands the ability to think in new directions and uncover new solutions, which often means risk, change, and unpredictability. During planning and execution the picture changes. Power distance should be low, as people who do the work should also be responsible for planning and executing it (Chap. 5). The main purpose of planning and execution is to ensure the prescribed goals are achieved and the project team members are the best people to decide the method of achieving it. During closeout attitudes should change again. Power distance should be high, as evaluation of the work done and results obtained are the responsibility of top management, because they are able to evaluate the work objectively and also because they are able to view the project in its wider context. Individualism should be low for the same reason. Uncertainty avoidance should be high, as the termination needs to be a well-structured process (Chap. 14) ending with the achievement of the project's objectives and ensuing benefits. Furthermore, the project team may feel insecure about the future, and so the manager should aim to maximize their security.

Doing a least squares fit of a country's Hofstede scores to the requirements for effective project management derived from his survey, Svein-Arne Jessen deduced a country's performance at each stage of the project life cycle and overall (Table. 19.1). The results show that project management is typically a Western approach to problem solving. It is probably also not surprising that Germany is top of the list; their very systematic industrial approach

TABLE 19.3 Preferred Cultural Approach at Each Stage of the Life Cycle

Trait	Feasibility	Design	Execution	Close-out
Power distance	High	Low	Low	High
Individualism	High	Medium	Medium	Low
Masculinity	Medium	Medium	Medium	Medium
Uncertainty avoidance	Low	Medium	Medium	Low

could well have been the model for the initial development of project management in the United States in the early 1950s. Arab countries and East Africa are also in the upper half of the list, showing either an in-built ability in these cultures to use the project approach, or a very strong and perhaps forced implementation of project management in these countries by Western cultures, which may have directly affected their behaviour.

(1) Most European countries fit into the accepted mould for project management having the right structural tools for systematic planning, organizing, and executing projects. They have self-confidence (high individualism) for taking on challenging tasks and doing them independently (low power distance), and accepting and fighting risks (low uncertainty avoidance). Their weakness occurs during start-up and termination, when it is necessary to ensure that the organization is doing the right projects and ensuring that the completion of the project results in the required benefits.

(2) Scandinavian countries, which often regard project management as typifying their cultures, score fairly low. They are well known for managing nearly everything through projects, with the result that organizations have far more projects than they have resources to handle, and large files of projects almost never terminated.

(3) The United States, which invented the concept of project management 60 years ago, scores well in both diagrams but their small power distance and their high acceptance of risk, expressed as weak uncertainty avoidance, could result in weak project termination, implying unnecessary time and cost overruns.

(4) Japan seems not to fit the project profile particularly well in any diagram having too strong uncertainty avoidance and lacking a profile that triggers project initiation, planning, and execution. As we know this has not prevented powerful industrial development in that country. It is probably also not so remarkable that the project approach is less used in Japan. Instead they prefer approaches such as production programming and quality circles which fit more with their cultural preferences and are the backbones of their success.

(5) Developing nations score fairly low on many of the described project management features. Indeed, these are the same factors for which they are often criticized by Western aid providers. However, they score fairly well on project initiation and they have a good balance between femininity and masculinity. Furthermore, their balanced uncertainty avoidance is a great advantage during project planning and execution. Here their fit is much better than, for instance, the Scandinavian countries.

We can match in project performance between pairs of countries. This provides interesting comparisons. For instance, the USA and Great Britain score highly in Africa, the Middle East, and South East Asia, and, surprisingly, the host country also acts as teaching agent with their greater ability at project initiation. It is also surprising that the Scandinavian countries, which in Gerd Hofstede's analysis came out with very much the same cultural profile behave quite differently when compared on the different project phases. Norway, for instance, performs well at planning and execution in East Africa, while Sweden is much better off in the Middle East. Hence, contrary to the common belief that the Western-oriented techniques of project management are just straightforward procedures anyone can learn and implement, there are considerable cross-cultural problems in using the approach in non-Western countries. Usually, insufficient focus is given to the fact that project management is not just a technique; it is an attitude of mind. Project management originated in Western countries and its popularity has been steadily growing but the outcomes have not always been in line with expectations particularly in developing countries. Traditionally this has been explained as weakness in the local human resources and the remedy being more training in the different mechanics of project execution, often in a Western setting. However, the reason may well be a weak understanding of local needs by Western countries particularly needs beyond the project scope which are hard to articulate and define in Western terminology. Furthermore, many Western cultures are weak in both the initiation and the termination phases due to their individualistic attitudes towards authority, risk, and quality of life. In summary, in spite of its increasing popularity and widespread appeal, the many pros and cons of the project approach should be given serious consideration before implementing it.

The Project Leader's Role in Managing Differences

Faced with such a bewildering array of factors, all conspiring to reduce project performance, project managers might be forgiven for wanting to cut and run! However, there are emerging a range of strategies that companies and project managers can employ in order to realise the full synergistic potential of cross-boundary project teams.

Project Manager Selection. Too often we find wholly unsuitable project managers are dumped into complex situations. No one has taken care to think about which sort of person and experience is best suited to making a success of these complex roles. Ralf Müller and I discuss the importance of obtaining cultural fit when selecting the project manager.⁵ Before managing such projects, project managers should have had experience working in different organizations, managing a range of disciplines and, ideally, having lived and worked in more than one country, preferably as a member of project teams (see Example 19.10).

Example 19.10 Project manager selection

I audited a company where the head of estimating wanted to try his hand at project management. The first and only project he managed was in Israel, and the project was 100 percent overspent.

Awareness of Own Programming. It is sometimes surprising for project leaders to realise that to work in a multicultural environment they need to be aware of their own mental programming. If the project leader is from the company and country owning the project, the automatic assumption is that things will be done "our" way. One challenge for a project leader is to balance and evolve the demands of the interface between their "home" organization, the client organization, and culture, and team members. Companies who work internationally find that to be successful they have to modify their own thinking and working practices. Cross-cultural working is a two-way street, not colonisation.

Awareness of Others' Cultural Programming. Working in multicultural environments requires the project leader to appreciate that things will be done, seen, and understood differently. Project leaders need to be curious, not shocked, and should demonstrate interest in finding out and understanding different people's world views. They need to respect values leading to behaviours alien to them, but important to the individuals and society to which they belong. Assuming things will be done "our way" only pushes differences underground so that they become embedded blockages. This easily creates an atmosphere of winners and losers which can prejudice effective delivery.

Leadership and Membership of Project Multicultural Teams: What to Do? For teams to work effectively, the roles and responsibilities of the leader and team members, both individually and collectively, must always be agreed. If the team is composed of people from different cultures, expectations of leadership and membership differ. Clarifying degrees of equality, responsibility, and accountability of the leader and members is fundamental. So team start-up and team building is vital for success. The activities well known in team-building events are just as important, but extra dimensions need to be added for international teams. There are three dimensions that have to be orchestrated to achieve high performance.

1. Ability to discuss and respect established ways of working

2. Awareness of own cultural programming

3. Awareness of others' cultural programming

Ability to Discuss and Respect Established Ways of Working. This means building a team culture where cross-cultural issues are openly discussed, so that appropriate ways are found to integrate all needs. In addition to formal team-building sessions, informal contacts between team members, suppliers, clients, and other stakeholders establish and nurture networks and create links that enhance mutual understanding, curiosity, and mutual respect. In low-definition cultures, informal relationships and getting to know individuals are considered more important than formal relationships (see Example 19.11).

Example 19.11 Respecting local ways of working

An English project manager commissioning a chemical plant in Latin America recognised he and his family would spend a lot of time meeting local dignitaries, suppliers, politicians, and government officials if he was to set up and hand the plant over. He explained that when at home he rarely saw anybody from work. He was keen on gardening and being with his family. However, he realised his new job would place a new set of responsibilities on him and his family in a new culture. Social activities connected with work had to be undertaken.

Accelerate Personal Network Development. The development of good personal relationships between people who have shared experiences is one of the most potent ways a project manager can influence project performance. However, companies in long-term joint ventures can also influence the wider networks through frequent job interchange, personal mobility, lateral career moves, interorganization conferences, meetings, and training courses. The more the webs of relationships between the organizations intertwine the better. This must be done not only at the top, but at all levels of the organizations concerned.

Language. Decide early on a common working language. Provide accelerated language training for all those whose first language is not the chosen language. Work hard on those for whom it is the first language to modify the way they speak. They must think as if it were a foreign language and should talk slowly, enunciate clearly, and avoid slang or jargon. Simultaneously, however, find ways to make it easier for those who are learning by translating key documents into several languages and by having a newsletter in more than one language.

Cross-Border Coaches. Identify people across the organization who have an awareness of the dimensions of difference and use them as coaches or mentors to the project team, either on training courses or available to advise less-experienced people about how to operate effectively in such environments. Such coaches can be supplemented by more formal cultural briefings about different countries that are increasingly available from specialist organizations.

Communications Infrastructure. New communications technologies are powerful tools for project managers, but they frequently fail to live up to their promise. The key lesson is not to fall into the trap of believing that e-mail, electronic and video conferencing, group-ware, and other technologies get people communicating. The personal relationships and networks need to be built in part first and then the technologies can help dramatically to develop these networks further. Get the basics in place first; good telephones, several fax links, and a good directory of who is who, what they do, and how they can be contacted. Supplement these with project start-up workshops, where all the key players get to meet each other personally and work together, and you will have rapidly created the basic technical and interpersonal infrastructure you need. Out of this the need and scope for more sophisticated methods will emerge more clearly.

The Overseas Project Team

The character of any team is determined by the quality of its senior personnel. This is especially true of the international project where individuals are thrown together more closely and there is less scope for toleration of personalities who do not fit in. A good project team does not just happen. It is achieved by hard work, particularly by the project manager, and this work has to be done before the overseas team is mobilised. The selection of the project team itself also requires careful consideration. Factors which should be taken into account when selecting personnel are discussed in the following sections.

Ability to Work Well with Others. This is probably the most important characteristic. The turnover on international projects is caused more by poor interpersonal relationships than by deficiencies in technical skills. Character deficiencies are more serious in the close confines of the international project than they are in the home office (see Example 19.10).

Prior Experience on Overseas Appointments. This is always a good pointer but check with previous employers or managers. The person you are considering may be the one person who did not fit in with the rest of the team.

Stability Under Pressure and Ability to Cope. There are many pressures on the expatriate staff member and his other family whilst working overseas. These include

Working and making decisions on the spot with limited support

Coming to terms with different working patterns and practises of other foreign nationals

Overcoming language barriers

Domestic pressure from the family due either to working abroad on single status or to the family themselves trying to come to terms with the problems of living abroad

Versatility. The overseas team requires personnel who are able to cope with every situation which may confront them, be it the breakdown of a much-used computer system or the emergency repair of a broken down car under hazardous conditions. You have to have personnel skilled in their own technical disciplines but it pays to look for hidden talent as well!

Patience and Diplomacy. Overseas personnel at all levels have to have interpersonal skills and be able to relate to the nationals in their host country.

Professional Ex-Patriots. These are people who spend a high proportion of their lives working on major overseas contracts for a variety of clients. They can bring a vast range of experience to a project team not only in a technical sense but also in such important areas as knowledge of local customs, how to get things done and general environmental awareness.

The International Partner

Many problems of overseas working can be overcome by working with partners experienced in the countries concerned, especially choosing a local partner. In order to be confident of the relationship, you need to be careful in partner selection.

Nature of The Company. Since your fortunes are linked to how well partners do their job and respond to risk, a clear view is needed of their reliability in the face of risks. There should therefore be a thorough review of their financial strength, backing, track record in the technology and markets, and their strengths and weaknesses. This is especially important with new partners.

Relationship with Government. Since many overseas projects involve export credit guarantees, Third World aid, or other financial aspects impinging on government relationships, the effectiveness of a partner's relationships with its own government could be crucial. For particularly large or controversial projects, it may be necessary to create contacts between national governments, in which case it is vital to have good links established at both company and government level.

Attitude to Risk. Risks on international projects include not only normal contractual risks such as bid and performance bonds, penalties, damages, but also major additional risks such as climatic conditions, delays, and damage in port and freight handling, and security of storage. The most important interface with partners is their readiness to tolerate the extra cost of responding to these risks. An essential prerequisite to agreeing the scope of shared work is to define clearly roles and responsibilities, and the channels of communications on solving joint problems. The awkward issues lie in ensuring precise monitoring and identification of problems early enough for joint management decisions.

Market and Logistics Capability. In the context of the market, the partner's competence in handling an international project should complement and be integrated with one's own, so that actions to clients, authorities, local interests, and government agencies are consistent and tactfully effective.

SUMMARY

1. International projects may include

Projects in your own country for a foreign client

Projects in your own country using foreign contractors

Projects in a foreign country for which you are client

Working as a contractor for a client in their home country

Projects in a foreign country for clients also alien to that country

Multinational joint ventures

2. Problems on international projects are created by

Culture

Degrees of distance

Organization, management, and communication

Productivity and logistics

Local legislation and regulation

3. Dimensions of cultural difference include

Uncertainty avoidance

Power distance

Individualism

Masculinity

Role of time

Consideration of detail

4. In order to manage these differences, managers need to:

Select an appropriate project manager.

Be aware of the programming of themselves and others.

Use appropriate leadership styles.

Discuss and respect established ways of working.

Accelerate personal network development.

Use appropriate language.

Use cross-border coaches.

Develop a communications infrastructure.

5. In putting together a management approach for international projects, you need to:

Choose appropriate staff.

Choose an appropriate local partner.

REFERENCES

1. Hofstede, G., Culture's Consequences: Comparing Values, Behaviors, Institutions and Organizations Across Nations, 2d ed, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2001.

2. Trompenaars, F. and Hampden-Turner, C., Managing People Across Cultures(Culture for Business), London: Capstone Publishing, 2004.

3. House, R.J., Hanges, P.J., Javidan, M., Dorfman, P.W., and Gupta, V., Culture, Leadership, and Organizations: The GLOBE Study of 62 Societies, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2004.

4. Jessen, S-A, The Nature of Project Leadership, Oslo, Norway: Scandinavian University Press, 1993.

5. Turner, J.R. and Müller, R., Choosing Appropriate Project Managers: Matching Their Leadership Style to the Type of Project, Newtown Square, Pa.: Project Management Institute, 2006.