ISSC—A Research Network Spanning Huge Culture Distances : A case Study from an organizational perspective

Abstract: Globalization brings greater movement of people, goods, capital and ideas. One of the advantages of globalization is sharing of not only products and services, but also knowledge and culture between people and countries. International research projects, such as the case study in this paper, -ISSC, are a good example of communication and cooperation between researchers from different culture backgrounds. The purpose of this study is to find out how cultural differences influenced the management of the international ISSC research project, which consists of five different partners. The partners include FPX (a Swedish organization), KI (a Swedish medical institute), Fudan and Huazhong Universities (Chinese Universities), and Heidelberg University (German University). Qualitative methods, such as questionnaires, phone conversation and face-to-face interviews have been used in this research study. PDI and IDV have had a relatively higher impact on such projects, on both team work and decision making, than other cultural dimensions such as UAI, LTO and MAS. Based on the study, suggestions are provided for future cooperation within ISSC-type projects.