Organisational Culture of Construction Joint Ventures: Case Studies in Hong Kong

Abstract

Culture can be regarded as a system of shared meanings that organises values into mental programmes which guide the behaviours of people within communities – notably, nations and organisations. Organisational culture involves cognition, affect and behaviour and reflects customary thinking, feeling and acting that are attributed to a particular group of people as they learn to cope with their environment. Largely, behaviours of organisations depend on the decisions and business strategies of top management and are greatly influenced by culture. There is a close relationship between the characteristics of organisational culture in a joint venture (JV) organisation and the parent companies; often, the organisational culture of the (most) powerful parent company dominates. That reflection relates to the top management’s strategy and the allocation of authority among JV partners. The two case studies investigate the organisational culture of international JV projects in Hong Kong that pool resources from parents with different cultural backgrounds. One of the case studies compares the JV organizational culture with the parent companies from UK, Hong Kong and mainland China. The organizational cultures of the parent companies are consistent with their own national cultural characteristics but, in the JV where more than one national culture is involved, the JV organizational culture is highly influenced by the dominant national culture of the management team. In the second case study, the project director is seconded from the dominant parent company. That JV exhibits cultural characteristics which show a synergy of elements from the founding parents but with emphasis on the culture of the dominant partner in the JV.