Conclusions

4. Conclusions

The goal of the handbook was to find critical factors which lead to success or failure in international project management. According to existing theory in the field, critical factors are related to the following themes: the general nature of project, culture, time, cost, communication and cooperation, people, risks and quality. It is important to see whole picture of the project but also recognize these factor in each phase. When these critical factors are seen, it is much easier avoid mistakes and find opportunities. The factors found in the literature were contrasted with the answers of two interviewees in the empirical research.

Culture and communication seems to be the biggest challenges in international project management according the interviewees, but that does not mean that cost, risk and quality issues are not important. Actually, culture and communication are linked closely to cooperation and people, which may cause difficulties to say what the critical factors exactly are. The interviewees explained that language and cultural differences bring challenges to fluent and effective communication and there might be differences in work ethics and attitudes as well. These can easily cause misunderstandings in cross-cultural projects. In addition, working culture and manners of behavior in working environment can also differ and be problematic. The project manager needs to have a good understanding and awareness of possible challenges set by culture and adjust to these. The key to that is learning, understanding and respecting the foreign culture and people. Time and cost management were also identified as crucial in international project management by both theory and the respondents. Furthermore, both of those issues were closely linked to risks, and it was suggested that usually there is a higher level of risk in international projects as well as more unforeseen risks.

All in all, the outcomes of the interviews mostly match with the suggestions in the theory. The only remarkable difference was the ways of ensuring quality in international projects, since the literature emphasizes somewhat different points than the interviewees. Multinational companies appear to apply their own quality guidelines and policies regardless of the location of the project. Additionally, the research found some interesting differences between the interviewees’ opinions and the theory regarding the time management issues: holiday differences are not such a big challenge as it is described in the theory, in case appropriate planning is applied beforehand. Furthermore, receiving permissions can take even double time compared to domestic projects, and the bigger the cultural difference, the more time is needed. However, some activities can even be speeded up abroad and can actually shorten the time needed. In many topics, beyond support for the theory, we also gained additional information and details, mainly from practical examples. 

 Figure 4. The conceptual framework of the conclusions.