Modelling of project success factors: A cross-cultural comparison

Abstract

Project managers often run similar projects in a different way under the influence of particular factors. It is important to discover these factors, which may affect projects` success. The objectives of this study are to examine cultural differences in project running styles of three Asian countries with different level of economic development – Israel, Japan and Kazakhstan, and identify how their styles affect project success. The authors use PMPQ (Project Management Planning Quality) model for comparing the performance of project planning processes, organisational support level and the level of project success. The study investigates 681 private projects from different fields like engineering, software, communication and service. The results determine typically strong and weak areas of the chosen countries in performing planning quality, different level of project success due to national cultural differences. Japanese managers pay significant attention to time and cost scheduling and have better results than Israeli and Kazakh managers. Kazakh managers show the worst result in cost overrun (25.96%) and low result in schedule overrun (32.9%). The study reveals common and specific knowledge areas for each countries` projects and helps measure their effect on project success.