Businesses exist to serve a particular purpose, achieving which is possible through projects. As employees and managers become accustomed to working with each other on specific objectives, they develop a certain set of beliefs that determine how they approach their tasks. The accumulation of these practices represents the culture of the company (Kerzner, 1). However, the culture is formed by the tasks the company has to perform.
Subsequently, the first reason why project management causes a cultural change is that culture is the result of the company solving a particular problem. The second reason is that executives that control project management may lack insight into how their subordinates approach objectives, which results in the superiors’ meddling with workers’ practices and thus changing their culture. As a consequence, all beliefs and values are shaped by upper management.
As the beliefs of employees change, so does the corporate culture. They begin to use their tools and technology in a different way, including integrative information technology. Naturally, the hardware and software specifics stay the same, but they are utilized in a new manner (Kim, 3). For instance, if the company introduces its cloud storage for all employee-related data, workers can choose not to use it because it was imposed on them. As a result, the cultural change, which took the form of the emergence of distrust for superiors impacted how workers store data.
Another example of a cultural change caused by project management is the implementation of a performance management system followed by employees’ resistance to it. Seeking to improve the performance of enterprises, local authorities in the UK pushed for the introduction of systems that “assess individual and organizational performance” (Kayas, Hines, McLean, and Wright, 2). This initiative was met with public disapproval and led to employees adopting resistant beliefs while trying to circumscribe the implemented surveillance.
The most valuable piece of information for me personally was the insight into the adoption of new technology by resistant employees. It was always a mystery to me how people who are apprehensive of new technological innovations learn to live with them and use them. I suppose that smartphones were also met with opposition by those people who are referred to as “old-school”. I suspected that they had started to use them out of necessity, but never really approved of them. The presented examples confirm my guess that it is possible to have beliefs against some technology, while actively using it. Yet, for me, the most peculiar implication is that even corporate culture may be irrational.
The question that I would like to ask concerns the course of action in the case of project management and culture contradicting each other. If the current management is not aligned with the adopted system of beliefs, can such a company succeed? After all, it has been stated that employees can be people, and organizations can begrudgingly accept new technology and managerial decisions, but still have second thoughts about them. While looking for an answer, I would be reading Start with why by Simon Sinek, which is an insightful exploration of relationships between cultural change and project management in such companies as Walmart, Starbucks, and Apple. The author argues that the misalignment of values and management is a pathway to corporate failure, however, I would be interested in hearing your opinion.
Source List
Harold Kerzner. 2018. Project Management Best Practices: Achieving Global Excellence. Web.
Oliver Kayas, Tony Hines, Rachel McLean, and Gillian H. Wright. 2018. Resisting Government Rendered Surveillance in a Local Authority.
Hyun Jung Kim. 2017. Information Technology and Firm Performance: The Role of Supply Chain Integration.