Intercultural management for international construction projects: A comparison of Austria and Germany with Australia

The construction industry is international with many of its major corporations operating globally. Cultural differences can affect the conduct of daily business and, besides many general practical books, little has been published on how differing cultural backgrounds affect the operating environment in an industry. This research gives an overview of cultural differences between organisations within the construction sector in Australia and in Austria and Germany. The first method used was an assessment of organisational culture based on the Competing Values Framework (Cameron and Quinn, 1999) with responses from enterprises in Austria and Australia. The intention was to identify differences in cultural orientation between construction organisations in Australia and Austria. This should have an influence on projects. The second method consisted of semi-structured interviews with mainly Austrian and German managers and engineers, who were working on construction projects in Australia at the time of research in early 2003. These interviews revealed that there were a number of significant differences in the operating environment of the sector. These have arisen as a result of a range of different cultural, governmental and historical factors in areas such as organizational culture, safety management on site, the influence of trade unions and of public stakeholders as well as the importance placed on environmental issues.