Cultural influence on decision making in project teams : The case of telecommunication industry

Sammanfattning: Title : Cultural influence on decision making in project team : The case of telecommunication industry Level : Master Thesis of Business Administration: Business Management Authors : Etchu Oben Agborsangaya and Maryam Taheri Supervisor : Professor Akmal Hyder Date: 2013 June Purpose : In the last few decades, the effects of globalisation has changed the way many companies carry out their activities. Greater emphasis are now placed on project management in a dynamic and effective atmosphere. As a result of this, companies try to understand how culture influences decision making in project teams in different countries. The purpose of this research is to investigate how culture influence decision making in project teams through an empirical study of telecommunication industry in Nigeria and Sweden by using Hofstede's framework on cultural dimensions. Research Questions : (1) How does culture influence decision making in project teams? (2) what are the similarities and differences in decision making in project teams between Nigeria and Sweden? Approach : The research design for this study includes literature review and qualitative method. The primary data was collected using semi-structured interviews with project managers and workers in project teams. The secondary data was collected through articles, journals and books. Data from the findings were analysed using coding. Results & Conclusions : It was found that culture influence decision making in project teams. In Nigeria, decision making in teams is more relax type because people try to avoid conflict by not hurting another person’s feelings while in Sweden decision making is more of a participating type in which each member in team has to be consulted and a consensus is arrived at before making the decision. Nigerian team values respect for senior colleagues and prefer hierarchy where codes of conduct exist, formality and inflexibility at work when compared to Sweden. 3 Contribution of the study : We recommend that prospective project managers of the mixed Swedish-Nigerian project team should encourage a participative involvement of all the members of teams in decision making and high degree of flexibility at work. This will lead to an efficient and effective project teams. The fact that this study was based on an important field of studies - project management, we could recommend that the impact of culture on project management could be explored in future research. Key words: Culture, project management cultural influence, decision making, project team, Telecommunication industry, Sweden and Nigeria.