Cross Cultural Management: Hybridization of Dutch – Indian Work Practices in Geographically Distributed IT Projects

Abstract

Business anthropologists can play an important role in the debate on cross cultural management. Unfortunately, studies on cross-cultural management are dominated by cultural value models, such as those described by Hofstede (1980), Adler (1986), Hall (1976) and Trompenaars (1993). These single and multiple dimensional models have narrowed the debate on cross-cultural management. To move away from these cultural values studies and open up new directions of cross-cultural research this paper focuses on the question of which collaborative practices emerge in the interface of Western and Indian branches of four Multinational IT Service Providers (MITSP); IBM, Accenture, Atos Origin and Philips. As a consequence of Global Sourcing strategies, front and back office employees in MITSP’s are now collaborating in geographically distributed project teams in the development and maintenance of client software. The in-depth case study was executed in the Netherlands and in India in the period of 2005 to 2007. The findings suggest that all companies formally strive for synergy but in the daily cooperation between the project teams power struggles and ethnocentric strategies dominate. The new cultural practices that emerge are a reflection of these power struggles between the Dutch and Indian project teams.