Project Management Strategies: How Organizational Culture Affects Business Performances

Question

Instructions:Select a topic area for discussion (as it relates to project management) from the list below:

• Human side of projects (e.g. stakeholder management, PM skills, teaming, etc.);
• Intangible aspects of project leadership (e.g. social networking, influence management, politics, etc.);
• Intangible aspects of project leadership (e.g. social networking, influence management, politics, etc.);
• Project benefits management, measurement and realisation;
• Project management and culture;
• An aspect of managing complex and/or non-standard projects (e.g. Programs/portfolios, ‘large’ projects, virtual projects, global projects, Project Office, etc.).

You are required to:

1. Develop a specific research question regarding an aspect of the topic selected;
2. Adopt an explicit viewpoint in regard to the formulated question;
3. Advance written and evidenced arguments to substantiate and support your viewpoint.

As a targeted literature review your initial point of view should be clearly stated at the outset (i.e. in the ‘Introduction’ section of your essay) and kept constantly in mind so that all research is directed toward gathering relevant information. The essay should then develop your ideas and reasoning in a logical and coherent manner towards a concise and well supported conclusion. Where appropriate, assumptions/definitions should be clearly stated and explained.

The essay should be 3,200 to 3,600 words of body (i.e. excluding executive summary, table of contents, references, appendices, etc.). Care should be taken to follow the guidelines presented below, particularly with regard to report style and referencing. It is envisaged reports will have at least 16 unique (and reasonably current) references from a variety of quality sources.

Answer

Executive Summary
In the modern globalised business environment, many global business organisations handle multiple projects at once, which require them to utilise proper project management strategies. The importance of project management strategies is very important, since it allows the organisations to handle the performances of their project teams, as well as the optimal allocation of available resources. On the other hand, the culture of an organisation is an indispensable aspect of the organisation, since it defines the various business strategies, activities and standpoints of the organisation.

This study will analyse the ways in which the organisational culture affects the project management strategies of a business organisation in a modern globalised business environment. The research methodology followed will be secondary research. A versatile set of literatures will be reviewed for drawing logical inferences on the interrelationship of project management and organisational culture in globalised business environment, and appropriate recommendations will be designed from the inferences drawn.

Introduction
In the modern business scenario, the project management concept has replaced the system of individual fixed duties in many global multinational organisations. Now, in most organisations the responsibility of work is given to a group of people who work as a team and are responsible for achieving a target or goal collectively. By this project management process the work efficiency and effectiveness has increased (Kerzner and Kerzner, 2017)

Work culture is an important aspect in an organisation as it highly affects the mindset and mentality of individuals working there. In case of team work for a project the individuals involved in the team have different thought processes which create an atmosphere of conflict while delivering final results. The work culture should be such that each individual can contribute their own individual ideas for achievement of a common goal (Elsmore, 2017). In this research essay, discussion about project management and culture from contemporary literatures will be done and relevant inferences will be concluded after analyzing the issues.

Research Question: The research question for this research essay is:

• In which ways does the organizational culture shape the project management strategies of a modern globalised business organization?

This essay will aim to formulate the answer to this question by analyzing relevant literatures and drawing logical inferences to reach a definite conclusion.

Literature Review
Project management, relevant theories and its significance
Project Management is the art of coordinating knowledge, tools and techniques throughout the life of the project to meet the objectives of the project within specific constraints. Kerzner and Kerzner, (2017), explain different project activities that aim to focus on a target. From the starting of work till completion, the organisation must run smoothly based on interaction to meet needs of clients. As argued by Svejvig and Andersen (2015), it is not always possible to maintain a smooth operation through all the phases of project management because in majority cases it creates conflict and mismanagement. As project management has become crucial for the development of organizational strategies hence it is important to identify the factors that contribute to the success of such management.

According to the viewpoint of Binder (2016), a project management success may be differently looked upon by a manager due to difference in role and perspective. If the difference in perspective arises, it causes delay in delivery of the project. On the contrary, Kaiser et al., (2015), has described that a management organisation considers a project to be successful even if it got cancelled before arriving at a conclusion due to some reasons, because still it results in substantial learning which can be applied for other projects further.

In analyzing project management the efficiency and effectiveness in delivery of results must be kept in mind. Ramazani and Jergeas, (2015) is of the opinion that the efficiency perspective of a project is based on time, budget and quality. While Stark, (2015), on the contrary, states that more emphasis is needed on project effectiveness like future profit and improved business performance, only then business performance rate will increase with 86.37% accuracy.

Badewi,( 2016) has described that initiation, execution, planning, monitoring and closure of projects should be done step by step for efficiency in work and meeting the deadlines. If any step is omitted or close monitoring is not done, the organizational system may collapse. In contrast, Chih and Zwikael, (2015) explains that the organizational structure is not dependant on the project management factors. It depends on how the project managers will allot and divide the work among the employees. The quality and efficiency of each individual in a team reflects the project success and not the correct order of following of management steps.

As opined by Svejvig, (2015), the project manager faces internal problems in an organisation. This is because the company fails to define its objectives before taking it up which poses a problem to the managers. If a project is poorly planned it fails at the end. Therefore it is important to discuss the ideas, goals and budget of the organisation beforehand. In contrast, Todorovi? et al., (2015), has stated, that before implementing a project if the ideas, knowledge and opinions of the team members are taken into account and they are given independence in sharing of ideas, the success rate of the project can been increased by 95.28%.

From the above views, it can be analyzed that the success of project management totally depends on how an organisation frames its team and manages its team managers. The dependency on one single individual for the success of any work should not be done and project management concept explains it efficiently. For efficient management of project, understanding of the goals, objectives and constraints are very crucial.

Organisational culture, its types, relevant theories and its significance
According to Chatterjee, Pereira and Bates, (2018) which states that organizational culture tends to include the expectation, experience and philosophy as well as the values that will guide the members of the organization for interacting and meeting the future expectations. Culture is generally based on the shared attitudes, beliefs, customs and various rules, which are being developed over time. Further, Hoque, (2018) states about the fact that culture also includes the visions, values, norms, systems and assumptions that exists in the organization for guiding the employees and bringing the much needed sustainability within the organization.

The various types of organizational culture are being stated below:

Clan culture: Foucreault, Ollier-Malaterre and Ménard, (2018) opines that clan culture is one of the most friendly culture which is similar to a large family. Leaders are seen as mentors and the employees tend to be more loyal towards the organization. Thus, the needs of the clients are met easily.

Adhocracy culture Gulua, (2018) states that this is a more dynamic and creative working environment where employees can easily tackle the risks associated with the work. Leaders are more innovative and bonding is created with the organization. In addition, availability of new products is seen as a success for the organization.

Market culture: Elsbach and Stigliani, (2018) states that this type of culture is a result based organization which puts maximum emphasis on getting things done. This makes the people more competitive and is more goal oriented.

Hierarchy culture: This is a more formalized work culture where leaders are more efficient in handling the works in the most efficient manner.

Organizational theory developed by Schien tends to describe the fact that organization do not adapt to culture in a single day, instead it is formed within due course of time (Driskill, 2018). This is mainly because employees go through various changes, adapt to various external environment, and help in solving the problems. The employees tend to gain experience from the past and start practicing it every day thus forming a sustainable culture within the workplace. The developer of the theory believed in three stages i.e. artifacts, values and assumed values which helps in forming the culture and bringing the much needed sustainability within the workplace. This will further help the employees delivering their best and enjoy working in a pleasant working environment. Thus, it will make the employees to adjust to various new working culture.

The importances of organizational culture are:

• It helps the company to identify the internal and external identity for bringing the work life balance among the employees
• It helps the company to identify the internal and external identity for bringing the work life balance among the employees
• It helps the company to identify the internal and external identity for bringing the work life balance among the employees
• It will make the organization to retain the most valued employees
• Lastly, a good culture will transform the employees to work as team and achieve the desired goals (Hoque, 2018)

Organisational culture influencing project management
In the words of Hornstein, (2015), culture and structure of an organisation influences project management. Maturity levels and management procedures impact how smoothly a project can be done. Projects involve partners, sub-contractors and clients on whom the success of the project becomes dependant. As argued by de Carvalho et al., (2015), if a project is fully dependant on the active participation of a partner who is in efficient in management of project related activities, the progress of the project will be delayed which in turn is hampering the time limit within which the project should be delivered.

In this context, Islam et al., (2015) has stated that as people all over the globe join in the organisations with different cultural and differences in thought processes; they can contribute new innovations and ideas while working for a project. This is enriching the quality of work being delivered to its clients. On the contrary, as stated by Navimipour and Charband, (2016), if any particular team member contributes more towards the development and enrichment of project, and if the project is successful, ego problem arises. The other team members who are incapable of contributing ideas every time can be jealous of him and hence they may not be interested to contribute much for the project as they get less attention than him.

From the research works of Jalal and Koosha, (2015), it can be stated that the same organisations even having branches in other places have different organisational cultures everywhere. The practices and cultures practiced and adopted in one organisation in one branch is different from the others which results in differences in quality of work and differences in submission time of projects by the team. On the contrary, in the words of Trivellas et al., (2015), it can be said that the organisation having its branches widespread in various places of the country follow the same organisational structures and work culture. They are not different from each other.

From the views, it can be said that organisational work cultures greatly influence the project management procedures. Differences in culture, opinions, internal conflicts and conducts of mismanagement should be cut down at the initial level of management otherwise it may pose a threat to the success of the organisation. Also if there is any difference in the work cultures that are practiced and followed in various organisations as well as their branches located in various parts of the world, that creates a problem for efficient management and it should be checked at the right hour. The success of the project should not be hampered for the internal conflicts and difference in ideas.

Discussion
The above analysis has been done in order to evaluate the various aspects of the project management strategies and the positive and negative effects that the organisational culture has on it. It is essentially a secondary discussion, where only secondary data has been collected and analyzed in order to reach a definite answer to the research question. As no primary data has been collected in this research, it can be seen that this research has been conducted entirely on the previous researches conducted by the other researchers. Therefore, it has been assumed that those researches were conducted in unbiased manner, and their results were valid and reasonable, which ensures the accuracy of this research.

As opined by Kuo and Tsai (2019), the business operations of the large globalised multinational organizations are gradually changing and developing into new styles that relies less on the strict adhering to specific regime for job duties and more on flexible environment for team project. In this situation, naturally the concept of project management has become more prevalent, as it helps the organizations to manage all of their projects in an efficient manner.

On the other hand, the concept of organisational culture has also become important, since it heavily influences on the employee motivations and coordination between them. However, Sandhu, Al Ameri and Wikström (2019) has argued that it has been seen from various business management researches that the organizational culture actually influences on the project management strategies of an organization, just like how it impacts on the various other business operations of that organization. This is even more relevant in the modern business market, especially in the global market, since the business operations of the global multinational corporations involves projects that are handled by multicultural teams.

Moreover, the idea of joint projects, where two or more companies choose their competent employees in order to form a team, is also becoming quite popular among the global business organizations in the modern age, as it allows the projects to be handled by experts. However, HAZAVEHEI et al. (2019) argued that any culture clash between these members of a project team can hamper the entire project. Therefore, it becomes essential for those organizations to maintain their organizational culture, which do not hamper the productivity of that organization.

It can be seen that this current research has this interrelationship of organizational culture and project management as its main research question, and this study has shed light upon the various issues that are raised due to the impacts of the negative organizational culture on the project management of an organization. Therefore, the various arguments and facts stated in this secondary research will be analyzed, and proper inferences will be drawn as follows.

On the contrary, Yip, Seow and Young (2019) argued that organizational culture has a much broader scope, as it is interlinked with various other aspects of an organization. In fact, even the mission and vision of a organization is linked with the culture of that organization. As seen in the literature research, the organizational culture of an organization can be seen and experienced from various tangible and intangible aspects. From the dress codes of the employees to the business activities and public statements declared by the higher management, the organizational culture can be expressed by an organization from various directions.

In this context, it has been seen that the culture of an organization also affects the project management strategies of that organization. For instance, it can be realized that when an organization gives the utmost importance on the use of minimal resource to achieve the goal, their project management strategy would be oriented around that culture, which would include specific steps that minimise the usage of resources in the projects as much as possible. On the other hand, Bouranta et al. (2019) opined that for an organisation which has the culture of attaining perfection in their products or services in terms of quality, their project management strategy would include steps that will ensure that the products or services generated through that project would have the best quality possible.

On the contrary, Lagrosen and Lagrosen (2019) opined that it can be said that these aspects of the culture of a large multinational globalized organization affect and shape the project management strategies of that organization. However, it has also been seen that the project management strategies also include the management of the project team, which includes strategies of handling conflicts, enhancing team performances, increasing the team spirit by properly motivating them in order to increase the efficiency and accuracy of the achievement of the project and many more. These aspects of project management are linked with the culture of that organization, as the strategies adopted for managing conflicts is directly depended on the policies of the management of the organization.

For instance, in case of an organization that has the culture of giving importance to their employees intentions and opinions, their project management strategies will include conflict management systems that would focus on achieving some optimized path for the opinion dif6efrences, and would manage to appease all the clashing parties in order to reach the most effective and efficient solution. On the other hand, for most of the large multinational global organizations, their project procedures have some form of fixed system, which allows the organization to manage any conflicts that arise during a project of them by taking the most optimized approach that ensure profitability of the organization.

The various steps of managing a project are the initiation, execution, planning, monitoring, and finally closure of the project, and the styles of these phases are also affected by the organizational culture. For instance, it can be realized that the initiation phase of project management sees the designing the blueprint of the project, and this can be both cost-oriented or quality-oriented depending on the organizational culture. The execution phase is mostly technical, and the monitoring phase is depended on the culture of the organization, which decides whether these will be strict or laid-back. Finally, the closure phase marks the end of a project, and this stage can also be affected by the organizational culture, becoming a permanent stop in the project or remaining open for further developments and improvements.

Conclusion
The above study has highlighted the various aspects of the project management and organizational culture, and it has shed light upon their interrelationship as well as their ways of affecting each other. It has been seen that the organizational culture is something that is inherent and unique for every organization, and it can be experienced from many different perspectives. On the other hand, it has also been seen that the project management strategy has many standard forms, and the same project management strategy can be used by many organizations that has similar products or services, and maintain the same level of standard for their products and services. Therefore, from the inferences drawn in the discussion, it can be concluded that the culture of an organizations deeply impacts on the project management strategies adopted by that organization, and a large multinational global organization have to adopt a suitable organizational culture in order to manage each of their large projects in an efficient and effective manner. Project management essay assignments are being prepared by our project management assignment help experts from top universities which let us to provide you a reliable essay help online service.

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