Compatible cultural configuration: One secret of international project management

2016 IJRSM – Volume 5 Issue 2

Author/s:

Bhattarai, Raj Kumar*
Tribhuvan University, Nepal (raj.bhattarai@outlook.com)

Abstract:

Six decades long planned economy of Nepal passed through a large number of socio-economic development projects, which heavily relied on financial and technical assistance of advanced countries and international organizations. However, the outcomes of the development projects could not address the primary concern of the people, and eventually the entire efforts of development resulted in political insurgency, economic turmoil, and chaos in the country. One of the main reasons behind the scenario was incompatibility between the development project specifications and the socio-cultural configuration in the country. This study reviewed the attempts of six decades of developmental project management perspectives. An assessment of the execution pattern of the projects provided insight about the services composition in the projects at one part, and an effort of identifying social processes, events and festivals helped to describe the cultural configuration and value system of the society at the other part. An analysis of the project specifications indicated a wide incompatibility in composition of the services in relation to the projects. The value system, cultural configuration, and outcomes of the projects indicated a high level of importance of compatibility between project specification and cultural configuration. This paper concludes with determination and description of cultural configuration and services composition that are taken as an integral part of international project management.

Keywords: Nepal; cultural configuration; social value; project management; services alignment

PDF

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5861/ijrsm.2016.1442

*Corresponding Author