Empirical Study on Intercultural Collaboration in Project Teams: Preliminary Research Findings
Empirical Study on Intercultural Collaboration in Project Teams: Preliminary Research Findings

Summary/Abstract: The cross-cultural differences and the intercultural aspects of the collaboration havebecome increasingly prevalent over recent years. Undoubtedly, this diversity may generatedifferent patterns of behavior in project teams. The research goal of the exploratory study isto identify advantages and obstacles to collaboration in multicultural teams at designing businesssolutions among Polish students – participants in intensive entrepreneurship programme(IP) within the framework of the international ECMT+ project1. In addition, the cognitive goalis to diagnose entrepreneurial attitudes and determinants of setting up one’s own company.During the two-week workshops in multicultural project teams in March 2017 at Karelia University in Finland, a participant observation method was applied. The main research methodwas, however, a semi-structured direct interview based on a questionnaire. Respondents werechosen purposeful and included six Polish students from Poznan University of Technologywho carried out business projects in six multicultural teams – in total 48 participants werefrom 14 countries worldwide. The obtained results of the study point to measurable benefitsof intercultural collaboration in project teams. Great commitment of the teams to achievethe goal and their healthy competition all remain noteworthy. Undoubtedly, however, a greatdiversity of attitudes and views in multicultural teams, national experiences and entrepreneurialknowledge make it necessary to overcome additional barriers, especially those withcultural backgrounds. The main limitation to the study is the non-representativeness of thesample and being limited to Polish participants. The findings presented in the article are verypreliminary and further investigation in this field is necessary, i.e. comparative studies coveringthe remaining workshop participants.

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