Xiao, H and Boyd, D (2008) Analysing cultural problems in international projects. In: Dainty, A (ed.) Proceedings of 24th Annual ARCOM Conference, 1-3 September 2008, Cardiff, UK.
Abstract
With the fast development of globalisation, more and more construction projects involve participants from different countries or different cultural backgrounds. This challenges previous approaches and is creating a new context for the industry. Besides the obvious language barrier, people from different cultural backgrounds may also have different faiths, assumptions and behaviour norms which can and do cause conflicts. As part of a wider project to establish how practitioners can work more effectively in cross cultural situations, this paper describes the authors' recent experience of working with a Chinese partner on a master planning project, and discusses some of the issues arising from the multicultural project environment. The analysis uses personal construct theory to interpret many of the problems in perception and communications and also to reveal the problem of emotion. It concludes that to work effectively in such a situation, we need to work with our personal constructs and pay more attention to informal communications.
| Item Type: | Conference Paper (Paper) |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | cross cultural environment; international project; personal constructs; communication |
| Index terms: | personal construct theory, norms, international project, practitioner, globalization, construction project |
| Subjects: | practitioner, strategic management, economic factors, cognitive psychology, sociology, production management |
| Topics: | International Construction, Project Management, Research Practice, Roles and Professions |
| Descriptive scope: | 3 PCT |
N.B. Descriptive scope is a count of how many of the five facets of empirical research are indicated by the words used in title, abstract and keywords. It is not intended as a judgement on the research; merely a count of the kind of word we would expect to indicate Phenomenon, Concepts, Theoretical framing, Empirical techniques, Analytical techniques. If all five are present, then a code of “5 PCTEA” will indicate this. If you feel the coding for this record is questionable, we welcome discussion around the terms we matched or the way we categorized them. The facet you would expect may not be coded, or a facet may be coded inappropriately. This can also bear on a larger question, of which facets should be treated as defining in construction management research. Please get in touch, and we will look at it. More details here