Building cultural intelligence: insights from project management job advertisements

Chipulu, Maxwell; Ojiako, Udechukwu; Marshall, Alasdair; Williams, Terry; Neoh, Jun Guan; Mota, Caroline; Shou, Yongyi

Abstract

This paper examines how organisations that conduct worldwide recruitment of project management professionals can derive insight from the cultural preferences stated within project management job advertisements. Drawing on project management practitioner job advertisements placed by 2040 organisations across seven countries and seven industries, we employ Hofstede’s national cultural framework to categorise cultural preferences which the organisations persistently replicate in their specifications of desired candidate project management practitioner competency. To map global trends and national variations, data analysis is undertaking and utilising exploratory data analysis, Poisson regression and negative binomial regression are used. The paper finds that specific national cultural dimensions – ‘Collectivism’, ‘Uncertainty Avoidance’ and, to a lesser extent, ‘Power Distance’ – are the most salient cultural denominators for advertised project management positions, while this is not the case with ‘Masculinity’ and ‘Individualism’. The findings raise issues about which organisations should seek to become more culturally intelligent, and which relate to the adaptiveness of the cultural preferences that they articulate through their job advertisements, both to project tasks and to cultural contexts for projects.

Citation

Chipulu, M., Ojiako, U., Marshall, A., Williams, T., Neoh, J. G., Mota, C., & Shou, Y. (2016). Building cultural intelligence: insights from project management job advertisements. Production planning & control, 27(3), 133-147. https://doi.org/10.1080/09537287.2015.1083623

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Aug 11, 2015
• Online Publication Date: Oct 23, 2015
• Publication Date: Feb 17, 2016
• Deposit Date: Dec 24, 2015
• Publicly Available Date: Dec 24, 2015
• Journal: Production planning & control
• Print ISSN: 0953-7287
• Publisher: Taylor and Francis
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 27
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 133-147
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/09537287.2015.1083623
• Keywords: Project management, Cultural intelligence, Cultural values
• Public URL: https://hull-repository.worktribe.com/output/383578
• Publisher URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09537287.2015.1083623
• Additional Information: Peer Review Statement: The publishing and review policy for this title is described in its Aims & Scope.; Aim & Scope: http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?show=aimsScope&journalCode=tppc20
• Contract Date: Dec 24, 2015