Culture Efficiency in Product Realization

Purpose and goal

The objective and overall goal of the project were to provide an industrial and scientific knowledge contribution so that companies will eventually have better knowledge and resources to work effectively in development processes with major cultural distances. The project was carried out by investigating practitioners´ experiences and future needs of the product realization process in five Swedish global companies. Also, a systematic review of research in related fields as well as various activities for results dissemination to industry and academia have been done.

Results and expected effects

The results of the industrial study show that cultural aspects strongly influence the product realization process. Fragmented approaches to manage cultural differences occur, but mainly at an individual level. An approach and techniques for systematic exploitation of existing knowledge either inside or outside companies are still lacking. Both the industrial and literature studies point to the need to develop tools to operationalize culture analyses in the product realization process, a work which has started with company collaboration as a result of this project.

Approach and implementation

The project was organized in a literature review of previous research about cultural influences in various phases of the product development process and an industrial study in five Swedish global companies participated. The companies identified current global collaboration which was strategically important to their business. Data were collected through 13 structured interviews, including functions as HR, construction, trade union representatives, marketing/sales, project planning and Indian suppliers. An analysis of the data identified key areas for culture efficiency.