Cross Culture Work: Practices of Collaboration in the Panama Canal Expansion Program (NGInfra PhD Thesis Series Infrastructure Book 60)

In the execution of a mega project, collaboration is inevitable. Requiring a combination of skills, knowledge and resources, projects often attract numerous participants each carrying their own cultural background. Consequently, a great variety of cultural differences and similarities, as well as distinctive practices and differing values and interests for participation, emerge when rms and people come together in a project organization. Cross Culture Work offers profound insight into the 'people' side of project management. In light of the Panama Canal Expansion Program Karen Smits describes how project participants deal with the cultural complexity in their everyday life. She illustrates the lived experiences of project participants and portrays the practices of collaboration that emerge in the project organization. These vivid accounts and observations emphasize the importance of a cultural perspective in the management of projects and stress the need for explicit attention to cross-cultural collaboration.