From Software Productisation to Portability - While Managing Industrial and Technical Assistance Projects

Carmen Laura Zarzu and Cezar Scarlat
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Carmen Laura Zarzu: Business Engineering & Management University “Politehnica” of Bucharest, Doctoral School of
Cezar Scarlat: Business Engineering & Management University “Politehnica” of Bucharest, Doctoral School of

from University of Primorska Press

Abstract: This paper brings to attention alternative viewpoints for the management of industrial and technical assistance projects, resulting from the experience of the authors and stimulated by the information technology industry, productisation and portability. The portability concept comes along with a new instrument, the cultural profile radar. The concept of productisation, born in the software industry (understood as the process of refining/polishing the already produced software and turn it into a [marketable] product), is usually associated with the service industries. Productisation of services assumes the association of tangible features (as physical location, facilities, people, etc.) with intangible service offerings. The aim of this paper is to present the results of the authors’ effort to explore the possibility to identify similar principles while managing industrial and technical assistance (international) projects (admittedly equivalent to complex services). Thus, the term portability denominates the replication of a successful project plan into another environment, transferring the same technologies, procedures, plans of activities and allocating similar resources. The portability highly depends on the cultural diversity between team members, manager, organization, and host community, ceteris paribus (technology, procedures, resources). Since a perfect copy of a project is almost impossible, the attempt to understand the cultural profile of the project helps predicting possible problems due to cultural diversity and identifies suitable solutions. Besides the term of project portability, the paper proposes the use of a radar-type tool to investigate the cultural profile of the project to be replicated. This radar portrays a set of cultural dimensions grouped along four quadrants (team, organization, manager, and host environment – i.e. the TOME radar). Significant cultural dimensions may refer to communication, interpretation of time, tolerance to ambiguity, distance to power, or multicultural experience, and may be selected depending on the industry and/or characteristics of the project. There is not a standard of perfect cultural profile for all situations, but, ideally, successful project portability calls for compatible cultural profiles; this is the main conclusion, sustained by authors’ experience in industrial and technical assistance international projects.

Keywords: project management; industrial and technical assistance international projects; productisation; project portability; multicultural teams; TOME radar (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
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