Culture and Conflict Management Style of International Project Managers

Umar K Mohammed,Guru P Prabhakar,Gareth Rt White

doi:10.5539/ijbm.v3n5p3

Umar K Mohammed, Guru P Prabhakar + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.5539/ijbm.v3n5p3

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Abstract

The management of culture has become increasingly important to many organisations and business disciplines, particularly multicultural and international project management. Cultural differences often result in varying degrees of conflict and require careful consideration. This study surveys 116 Project Managers using the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument to determine their approach toward managing conflict. Indian, French and UK Project Managers’ conflict management style are correlated with Hofstede’s description of their cultural characteristics. We find that significant links between the cultural dimensions of Individualism and Masculinity with the propensity for Project Managers to adopt a Competitive style of conflict management. We also find Uncertainty Avoidance correlates with a tendency for Project Managers to adopt an Avoiding approach to conflict management. Other relationships are found between Hofstede’s cultural dimensions and conflict management styles in Project Managers but their meaning requires further study.

Highlights

The management of culture has become increasingly important to many organisations and business disciplines, multicultural and international project management
This study focuses on the cultural characteristics and conflict management styles of Project Managers in France (15%, 17 responses), the UK (28%, 34 responses) and India (18%, 21 responses)
It shows that a high percentage of Project Managers in France, and to a lesser extent in the UK, adopt a Competitive style of conflict management (17.86% and 32.14% respectively) whilst the propensity to take this approach in India is very low (7.14%)

Summary

Introduction

The management of culture has become increasingly important to many organisations and business disciplines, multicultural and international project management. McCoy (2003) among others (Akande, 2002; Tardif, 2002; Giddens, 2000; Norchi, 2000), summarise these criticisms; that any description of culture will be an average, the model proposed by Hofstede identifies five characteristics of culture but does not describe their interrelationships, the model does not explain whether the observed culture displays for example the ‘IBM-ness’ of India or the ‘Indian-ness’ of IBM, and that the study is out of date for reasons including changes in gender equality in developed countries and the globalisation of skilled personnel which has tended to dilute national distinctiveness Despite these criticisms, Hofstede’s work has proved to have value in determining or predicting cultural traits (Samarah and Mykytyn, 2002; Triandis, 1995; Bartlett and Ghoshal, 1989). Managers are more individualistic than their Russian counterparts and the managerial culture in the United States is characterized by lower power distance and uncertainty avoidance than the Russian managerial culture

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