Coping with multicultural projects : the leadership styles of Finnish project managers
By: Marko Mäkilouko
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ArticlePublisher: Nijkerk : Elsevier, 2004International Journal of Project Management 22, 5, p. 387-396Abstract: Finnish leaders and key personnel of multicultural projects were interviewed about their experiences and perspectives on multicultural project leadership. The team members included FinnishChinese, FinnishEuropean, and FinnishAmerican cultural combinations. The Chinese team members were mostly from Hong Kong with one team from Beijing. Three multicultural project leadership styles were found. Forty out of forty-seven project leaders indicated a solely task oriented leadership style. The same leaders also indicated cultural blindness, ethnocentrism, parochialism, or in-group favoritism. The seven leaders that indicated almost solely relationships' orientation, or both task and relationships' orientation, indicated also cultural sympathy and three leadership strategies to maintain team cohesion and to avoid cross-cultural problems. It is possible that they understand foreign cultures as a social phenomenon and can use that knowledge in leadership. Obviously, the relationships and task orientation are personality traits that have wide consequences for multicultural project management and the choice of leadership style as well as the foreign cultures
Finnish leaders and key personnel of multicultural projects were interviewed about their experiences and perspectives on multicultural project leadership. The team members included FinnishChinese, FinnishEuropean, and FinnishAmerican cultural combinations. The Chinese team members were mostly from Hong Kong with one team from Beijing. Three multicultural project leadership styles were found. Forty out of forty-seven project leaders indicated a solely task oriented leadership style. The same leaders also indicated cultural blindness, ethnocentrism, parochialism, or in-group favoritism. The seven leaders that indicated almost solely relationships' orientation, or both task and relationships' orientation, indicated also cultural sympathy and three leadership strategies to maintain team cohesion and to avoid cross-cultural problems. It is possible that they understand foreign cultures as a social phenomenon and can use that knowledge in leadership. Obviously, the relationships and task orientation are personality traits that have wide consequences for multicultural project management and the choice of leadership style as well as the foreign cultures
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