The labor market has become more globalized, which has resulted in an increase of international projects. This is especially common in the software industry, where companies often hire computer specialists from other countries, to broaden the organizations’ expertise. International projects mean more cultural differences at workplaces. This can both disadvantage and enrich a project, depending on how the project participants perceive and handle the differences. The intention for this study is to explore how the project participants in a multicultural project, in the software industry, experience the cultural differences.
As the workplaces become more multicultural, there is an increased need for knowledge about different cultures. For this, Hofstede’s cultural dimensions theory is a frequently used reference, which is a broad generalization of different cultures. This leads to the second aim for this study, which is to examine if generalizations of cultures can be used to understand how project participants perceive cultural differences in a multicultural project.
The study was conducted through a qualitative case study in the software industry, where two Indians and two Swedes in a project were interviewed. The project team and the respondents are placed in Karlstad, Sweden. Empirical data has been related mainly to Hofstede’s cultural dimensions theory. In the analysis it has been studied if Hofstede’s theories are suitable to use for understanding the project participants' perceptions of the cultural differences in a project. The study is focusing on multicultural projects and does not considering projects in general. Only those cultural differences covered by Hofstede’s five cultural dimensions have been taken into account. There is a sixth dimension in Hofstede’s theory, but this one has not been considered in this study.
Hofstede’s cultural dimension theory is showing obvious contrasts between the studied cultures, but it appears though that the respondents' perceptions of cultural differences are not as clear as in Hofstede’s study. The conclusion is that general descriptions of cultures are not applicable on individuals, but are suitable for studying large groups. During the interviews, it appears that the Indian respondents consider that they are more affected by cultural differences in the project, than the Swedish respondents do.
The project participants perceive that cultural differences affect the group mostly informal and not concerning the formal work. The respondents do not believe cultural differences affect the group in any significant way, which is probably due to that there is some prior knowledge and experience of each other and other cultures, namely cultural intelligence. Another contributing factor could be the Indian respondents’ ability of adapting to Swedish culture and its way of working.
For further research it would be interesting to study how cultural differences in a project influence the project participants' cooperation. To study the influence rather than the perceiving, the study would probably have to be more substantial, such as a greater number of respondents for an extended period of time.