Project management in American companies is becoming a very formal process. This is particularly true as teams work remotely. The Journal of Accountancy article recommends formalizing not just protocols and deadlines, but conflict resolution procedures and daily work schedules as well ("Manage a Virtual Team," 2005). This can avoid confusion among American workers, but may not work as well with international ones.
The article appearing in the International Journal of Business Studies discussed detentions of cultural orientation to consider when dealing with someone from another culture. They are as follows:
While mechanistic systems focus on rigid division and allocation of tasks, organic systems focus on the overall task, allowing variations in the organization of sub-tasks (Pothukuchi, Damanpour, Choi, Chen & Park, 2002).
The employee versus job orientation dimension contrasts a concern for people (employee oriented) with a concern for getting the job done (job oriented) (Pothukuchi, Damanpour, Choi, Chen & Park, 2002).
The parochial versus professional orientation dimension analyzes organizations based on whether employees derive their identity from the organization (parochial) or from the type of job (professional)... (Pothukuchi, Damanpour, Choi, Chen & Park, 2002)
The loose versus tight control orientation dimension classifies organizations based on their amount of internal structuring and management control... (Pothukuchi, Damanpour, Choi, Chen & Park, 2002)
The normative versus pragmatic orientation dimension separates organizations into rule oriented (normative) and customer oriented (pragmatic) organizations (Pothukuchi, Damanpour, Choi, Chen & Park, 2002).
When forming a team with members from different cultures, it is best to consider what the members have in common and to define the protocols from those similarities. In all cases, however, the project manager should communicat
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