Understanding Your IT Project Organization’s Character: Exploring the Differences Between the Cultures of an IT Project and its Base Organization Erling S. Andersen Norwegian School of Management BI, Sandvika, Norway erling.s.andersen@bi.no Abstract Participants from 125 different Norwegian projects (including forty-one IT projects) have described the organizational cultures of both their most recent project and the base organization they work for. Their descrip- tions are based on a typology that distinguishes between power, role, task and person cultures, as outlined in the classic work of Harrison in his HBR article from 1972 and later developed further by Handy. The results of this study indicate that projects are more task culture- oriented than their base organizations, with IT projects being only slightly closer to the task culture than other projects. Further, for a given project to move closer to the task culture at hand, a focus on increased elimina- tion of hierarchical elements of the project is required. 1. Introduction Projects, as an organizational form, are becoming increasingly popular. The traditional line organization (or base organization) has come to realize that many problems and challenges are better addressed by estab- lishing a project. A project, in this sense, is set up to handle a rather unique task, to obtain a specific result, with a variety of resources, within a limited time period. Within the IT field, the use of projects is particularly widespread. The importance of the organizational culture within projects was early pointed out by Cleland [1] as well as by Firth and Krut [2]. The results of the efforts of an organization are strongly influenced by its culture. As shown by Brown [3], there is multiple definitions of organizational culture. The well-known definition by Schein [4] suggests, in essence, that an organizational culture is the pattern of basic assumptions accepted and used by the organization. A project manager is facing two main cultural chal- lenges. Firstly, in order for the project to progress prop- erly and achieve the best results possible, the project manager must quickly develop a suitable organizational culture within the project. Secondly, s/he must be aware of the organizational culture of the base organizations involved and the sub-cultures of various departments in order to communicate and interact effectively with those groups [5]. It is not easy for a project manager to establish the adequate project culture. Developing an organizational culture requires calendar time, a commodity already at a premium in most projects. In addition, people are typi- cally recruited to the project from the base organization, often implying an organizational culture at odds with the culture one hopes to establish in the project. Most peo- ple from the base organization must then adapt culturally to the new project in order to function effectively. This article will investigate the current organizational culture of the projects studied. The organizational cul- tures of the projects will be compared to the organiza- tional cultures of the base organizations involved. We will further explore in which areas there remains room for improvement in order to achieve a more positive and productive project organizational culture. 2. Typologies of organizational cultures Different typologies might be used in order to under- stand the organizational culture of an organization [3]. Deal and Kennedy [6] distinguish between four generic cultures: the tough-guy macho culture, the work hard/play hard culture, the bet-your-company culture, and the process culture. Scholz [7] has identified three culture typologies based on different dimensions of culture: the evolution dimension (how cultures change over time), the internal dimension (how the internal circumstances of an organization affect its culture), and the external dimension (how an organization’s environ- ment affects its culture). The last dimension is in accor- dance with the Deal-Kennedy typology. 0-7695-0981-9/01 $10.00 (c) 2001 IEEE 1 Proceedings of the 34th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences - 2001