Globalization, global competitive market forces and technological progress have made Geographically Distributed Development (GDD) possible and a necessity for most companies in the world. The software industry has consistently been at the forefront of exploring and implementing this business model. This thesis studies the key drivers of GDD, identifies the major challenges which global virtual teams face and existing frameworks for successful global virtual teams. A case study is used to validate the challenges and concerns of managing a global virtual team and a framework is proposed to help overcome the challenges and enable successful global software development. / text

More and more companies have expanded their activity to other countries due to globalization. Therefore, effective management of multi-national project has become an important ability for company development. Many companies choose the matrix organization as they design the organization of multi-national project, and past studies mostly focus on the design and management of matrix organization. However, the management of network relationship inside and outside the organization plays an important role for the success of project. The management of project relationship becomes more and more complex when it comes to multi-national organization. This research explores the network relationship of matrix organization within a global project. Through a representative project selected from a multi-national company, its¡¦ organization network and project management was studied. The management of network relationship inside and outside the organization includes: (1) Management between functional organization and project organization, (2) Organizational self development, (3) Stakeholder management. This research uses case study as the research methodology and studies issues concerning the project network relationship management. Network relationship related issues were identified and compared to key points indicated by literature; then the relation chart was determined accordingly. Finally, the key point for future development of project organization was suggested.

Submitted by Nadir Basilio (nadirsb@uninove.br) on 2016-05-12T20:30:16Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Nádia Lima.pdf: 1541830 bytes, checksum: 9281ed0500aafa84448161028048b5af (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-05-12T20:30:16Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Nádia Lima.pdf: 1541830 bytes, checksum: 9281ed0500aafa84448161028048b5af (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-02-25 / The influence of culture in organizations has been the focus of research and studies since a long time ago, and the reason is that culture shapes decision patterns of a company, guides their actions and directs the individual behavior of all the organization’s professionals. In the project environment, interactions between the project managers and team members may also be affected by variables such as culture and the projects manager's leadership style. Focused in this context, the aim of this study is to assess how the cultural diversity of global project’s members of multinational companies can influence the projects manager’s management skills. Therefore, this study presents issues about project management and management of global project teams and also references about concepts and approaches of culture, highlighting the cultural diversity. This study is a qualitative and descriptive multiple case, that was conducted in multinational companies. The main purposes of this study are collaborate with other research on culture in the project management environment, and contribute to a better understanding on how project managers can deal with the influence of cultural diversity in the management of global projects team.The results of this research demonstrate that the different cultural characteristics (language, values, religion and others) of the members of a global project can influence both negative and positive the management ability of global project managers and that managers of such projects have to deal with a number of challenges that require various personal skills and social relationships, and the adoption of measures to minimize potential problems in this context. Thus, the main contributions of this study are provide a better understanding of how project managers can handle the influence of cultural diversity in the management of global project teams as well as collaborate with future research on culture in the project management environment. / Há muito tempo a influência da cultura nas organizações tem sido o foco de pesquisas e estudos, e a razão disso, é que a cultura molda padrões de tomada de decisão das empresas, guia suas ações e direciona o comportamento individual de todos os profissionais da organização. No ambiente de projetos, as interações entre o gerente de projetos e os membros da equipe também podem ser afetadas por variáveis, como a cultura e o estilo de liderança do gerente de projetos. Focado nesse contexto, o objetivo desse estudo é analisar como a diversidade cultural existente entre os integrantes de projetos globais de empresas multinacionais pode influenciar a habilidade de gestão do gerente de projetos. Para isso, o estudo aborda os temas de gerenciamento de projetos, e gestão de equipes de projetos globais e empresas multinacionais, e ainda apresenta referências sobre conceitos e abordagens de cultura, destacando a diversidade cultural. Trata-se de um estudo de caso múltiplo qualitativo e descritivo, que foi realizado em empresas multinacionais com operação no Brasil. Os resultados obtidos nesta pesquisa demostram que as diferentes características culturais (idioma, valores, religião e etc) dos integrantes de um projeto global podem influenciar de forma tanto negativa quanto positiva a habilidade de gestão dos gerentes de projetos globais e que os gerentes deste tipo de projetos têm de lidar com uma série de desafios que exigem várias habilidades pessoais, sociais e de relacionamento, além da adoção de medidas para minimizar os possíveis problemas existentes neste contexto. Assim, as principais contribuições deste estudo são oferecer um melhor entendimento sobre como gerentes de projetos podem lidar com a influência da diversidade cultural na gestão de equipes de projetos globais e ainda colaborar com pesquisas futuras sobre a cultura no ambiente de gestão de projetos.

Global projects have a high failure rate, with many project failures attributed to lack of effective leadership. A knowledge gap about leadership requirements and complexities in a global project management environment has increased the risks in global projects. The problem is evident in the increasing project failure rate and the struggling national strategies in the oil and gas industry in the Arabian Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). The purpose of this study was to explore the role of leadership in project success and adaptation complexities in GCC. The conceptual framework consisted of complex adaptive systems and contingency theories. A qualitative approach was used to capture common understandings of project leaders' role and the opportunities and challenges in a multicultural global project environment. Personal interviews were conducted with 25 participants from the oil and gas industry in GCC who were selected using a purposive sampling method. Six themes emerged from an exploratory and comparative analysis, including: adaptable project structure with team and environment dynamics; leadership role and the impermanent multicultural environment; project success definition and the success criteria; aligned performance and governance systems; changing organizational strategy; and team building and the project complexity management. Based on study findings, a framework was created for leading 4 organizational processes in global projects, which includes the environment, team building, leadership selection, and setting of project success criteria. Higher efficiency in leading these processes may contribute to positive social change and support practitioners to promote a project environment for active knowledge integration.