Sampo S.I. Tukiainen
ABSTRACT
This paper examines how Finnish project managers engaged in highly complex, international engineering projects cope with and respond to the cultural dominance expressed by their project partners. The paper highlights that the managers not merely condescend to their subjugated positions, but also use various tactics as countermoves against the perceived dominance. Based on these findings, the paper then extends the idea of cultural determinism present in many an essentialist cultural study. That is, instead of portraying the project managers solely as "dopes" of the cultures, the paper advocates individual volition and "cultural agency", where the managers are seen to be capable of using different kinds of tactics to counteract the cultural forces at play. Concomitantly, this notion suggests caution in utilizing the ever popular cultural stereotypes in predicting and advising on cultural implications in cross cultural interaction and interfaces. Practical implications are discussed.
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Index Terms
- Coping with cultural dominance in cross cultural interaction
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