Chinese versus Western Styles of Project Management
GENG Yiming 54257474
Abstract: One soil nurtures one culture. Cultural differences will inevitably lead to differences in management. Facing their various production environments, social background and development objectives, management thought and practices will produce different results in each country, forming their corresponding management theory and management models and methods.
Keywords: management differences; cultural root; China; West
1 Introduction
Over the past five decades, the Western business areas firmly established the career of the project management, while China has not been affected in this regard until the economic reforms. Since the 1980s, the Western project management
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Pant et al. found that matrix organizational structure in Nepal was not as useful as in Western countries, because the management teams in Nepal have serious bureaucracy. England described the very successful management rule in Japan, Z theory, had been constrained in the US application.
Easterby-Smith et al. concluded that the Chinese people concerning on "guanxi", gregarious and face limited the adoption of Western human resource management system in China.
Based on similar studies described above, we discussed hereinafter, due to the existing significant differences in Chinese and Western culture, the realization of project management practices from Chinese and Western project managers is probably different. Now, seven theoretical arguments on how the cultural differences affect the project managers have been summarized.
2 Theoretical arguments
2.1
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The West has strong project management targeted tasks, so the project team is temporarily component to accomplish a specific task; the relationships are subordinated to tasks. For the Chinese project managers, by contrast, the relationships of friendly cooperation between team members determine whether they can successful complete the task. Therefore:
Relative to the task, the Chinese project manager will spend more effort to establish and maintain personal relationships between members of the project team.
On contrary, Chinese culture emphasizes the ranks and in order to maintain harmony between the interests of each other, pay attention to long-term cooperation.
In modern China, people engaged in commercial activities also sign a contract, but the residual effects of deep-rooted cultural values of Chinese style, making the potential relationship more important than the contract itself. Meanwhile, the bidding and awarding procedures implemented today in China are likely to form the hierarchy of owners, contractors, and subcontractors.
Therefore, we recommend:
Chinese project managers tend to put the owner as the parent, valuing long-term cooperation with the owners. The Western project managers tend to put contract owners as equal partners, valuing signing a good contract with
Annotated List of Works Cited Chou, Jay. “Blue and White Porcelain.” JVR Music, 2007. CD. Jay Chou’s “Blue and White Porcelain” is a Chinese popular music related to various Chinese history and culture.
This is because the contractors are hired based on the agreement on the contract (Harrington, 2003). They can be easily hired and fired according to the contract. The contractor could be chosen through the compulsory competitive tendering (CCT) process. CCT is being used to lessen the size of public sector, increase inefficiency, encourage the competition and provide opportunities for private enterprise (Abbott, Blackburn, & Curran, 1996, p. 72). In CCT, the company’s ability to compete and persuade the local authorities is important because it determined either their company get the tender or
This type of contract is preferred when there is uncertainty in the scope of work, or when the types of the materials, labor, and equipments are being similarly uncertain in nature. 4- Incentive contracts Incentive contracts feature compensation which depends on the contracting/engineering performance in accord with an agreed target, schedule, quality, and/or budget. 5- Percentage of construction contract
institution Chinese culture is extremely various and has a strong historical grounding. It is one of the world’s oldest cultures. However customs and traditions of Chinese people vary greatly from province to province and from one city to another. In general, a society has a strict hierarchy, which places aged people and people with authorities above the youth as well as men above women.
In general, Western cultures are short-term oriented while Eastern cultures tend to be more long-term oriented. The US-managers were obsessed of making high profits in a short amount of time, while their Chinese partners urged them to first take steps that support long-term oriented goals like the focus on the company´s strategic
To organise for project management requires an understanding of the organisation’s architecture which includes the organisational hierarchy - the grouping of internal business units, the authority lines and interaction with one another. Each of these aspects should be designed to support project management within the organisation. Structure should follow strategy or else it may impede communication, coordination and decision making which are all key to success (Brevis, 2014, p. 224). Hence, an important function of upper management is to support project teams by either redesigning the organisation to emphasize projects or integrating projects into the current organisation (Graham & Englund, 2004).
In cross cultural psychology, uncertainty avoidance is a society's tolerance for uncertainty and ambiguity which ultimately refers to man's search for Truth. It indicates to what extent a culture programs its members feel comfortable or uncomfortable with uncertainty and ambiguity. Uncertainty avoiding cultures try to minimize the possibility of unstructured situations by implementing strict rules and regulations, laws, safety measures and security. Uncertainty Avoidance of United States is 46 from the figure. Americans are willing to take risk.
Organizational behavior: Emerging knowledge, global reality (7th ed.). New York, NY:
Max Weber embellished the scientific management theory with his bureaucratic management theory largely focused on dividing organizations into hierarchies, establishing strong lines of authority and control. Weber suggests that organizations develop standard
TASK IV: PARTNERSHIP IN PROJECT MANAGEMENT Partnering is a project approach designed to allow the construction process to be performed within an atmosphere of mutual trust, commitment to shared goals, and open communication among the partnering members while working in harmony toward mutual goals in order to avoid claims and litigation and establish a win/win management approach. For the complex and large-scale Atlantis project, the contractually associated construction partnering between Laing O’Rourke and NORR along with various other members like Rockwell Group, WATG, EDSA, helped to create working relationship among all of the team members based on mutually agreeable plan of cooperation and teamwork to improve productivity. The main objectives of Atlantis project partnership included reducing project costs and schedules, eliminating change orders and claims, improving communication by developing
Different scholars identified various kinds of leadership styles that affect the job performance, satisfaction and learning and development of subordinates. Warrick, D.D (1981) cited that there are no doubt variables other than a leader’s style that affect employee performance and development but leadership style plays a significant role and not to be underestimated. An awareness of leadership styles and their consequences are very important because it may either facilitate or inhabit skill development. The major theories on leadership are the traits, leadership styles and contingency theories.
The principle reason that motivated me to pursue the MSc Project Management course is the appeal and challenge Project Managers experience in delivering assignments they undertake in their career. The qualification, indeed, lead to very smart and modern careers for graduates who love challenges, creativity, leadership and success. As a graduate of Mathematics, I have cultivated these features in my student life. Now, for my master level of study, I would like to take my chance of attaining formal skills in the area of project management. From my research, I see that Project Management is the application of skills, knowledge and techniques to meet the objectives of a project and stake holder’s expectations.
It refers to the patterns of communication, interpretation and adjustment between individuals. Both the verbal and nonverbal responses that a listener then delivers are similarly constructed in expectation of how the original speaker will react. Workers contribution is more involved in this theory. (Markes, 1999) Contributions 1)
State-owned enterprises are difficult to penetrate for a foreign company like JPM. Employees with guanxi can minimize JPM’s costs, especially for government procedures, requirements and taxes. Connections add a significant measure of flexibility and freedom inside an authoritarian political system and is critical to JPM’s market access. Hiring the sons and daughter of these ruling elite give JPM immediate access to not just their connections but the connections of their parents as well. This is reflected in the hiring practices and the resultant connections with China Everbright and China Railway Group.
Job security is low as the companies start letting go if the company runs in trouble. Japanese employees have trust and acceptance factors of management decisions when it is concerned with application of practices and policies Americans do not work at high level capacity and do not assist in greater extent. Managerial Culture The managerial culture of USA can be described as individualistic.