THE IMPACT OF CULTURE ON PROJECT MANAGEMENT SUCCESS BĂŠnĂŠdicte HEYSCH DE LA BORDE ESC RENNES SCHOOL OF BUSINESS
Abstract The purpose of this paper is to provide an argumentation about leadership difficulties a western project manager can experience when being expatriated in China and managing people from a different culture. Actually, the leadership is an important dimension for a project manager as it has an impact on the success of a project. Nevertheless, the leadership notion and practices are influenced by cultural differences. The paper reviews the numerous cultural differences between the western and project management culture, which is initially a western style, and the Chinese culture. While, those cultural differences do exist and have an impact on leadership styles and can affect the effectiveness of a project team, it should also be considered that in practice, things could be different and currently evolving. Project management is not anymore a totally new management style in China. In a world going global, some management styles are also going global. Project managers are aware of culture matters, have some solutions to adapt their practices and Chinese local people are getting more used to western management style. Key words: Project management, Leadership, Cultural dimensions, China JEL Classification: F23, M12, M16 Introduction With a world going global, many companies have turned global and have been developing some activities abroad sending away some professionals, including project managers. Lately, China has been and still is a very attractive country for many businesses. Nevertheless, leading activities in another country means understanding the hosting country and being able of adaptation. This is not always an easy task, especially when western project managers are faced to manage teams composed of local people. And as said by Low and Shi (2001), cultural difference is very important to consider, as it is a major factor affecting success or failure of projects1. This paper has been written in order to expose the differences between the Chinese and the western cultures, and to explain the influence of those differences on the leadership style of both cultures, which then implies impacts on the project success. Many researches (Low &Shi 2001) about cultural dimensions and about their effects on project management have been directed. There is also a big literature about the leadership role on project management. This study has been drawn to link all those notions and focuses on project teams composed