Managing international projects: The contribution of locally employed staff

Purpose/objectives: In an international and globalised world with unlimited boundaries, the field of project management has expanded into a multinational environment. International engineering projects have increasingly become common practice, however, also more challenging due to their international nature. Relevant project management literature has been systematically reviewed and a gap in knowledge has been identified. Whilst the challenges of managing projects in an international environment have been researched extensively, the involvement of local personnel and their specific contributions has not been studied to date. This research will focus on the criticality of involving local personnel when executing international projects in the engineering sector and will identify the contribution of local project team members to the success of such projects. The aim of this research was to explore and identify the contributions of local personnel when managing engineering related projects in an international environment, thereby contributing to knowledge and practice in the field of international project management. Design/methodology/approach: In-depth, semi-structured interviews have been conducted with experienced international project managers as well as local coordinators with a leading role within the local project office. These interviews have been recorded, transcribed and analysed using an inductive approach. Based on the identified categories and the grand themes of international project management identified during the literature review, the findings have been presented. Findings: The findings represent a significant contribution both for knowledge as well as business practice. In-depth interviews and the subsequent analysis have resulted in the clear finding, that the involvement of local personnel is critical to the success of an international engineering project. In addition, numerous specific contributions have been identified by the respondents and have been categorised in order to develop a theoretical framework of contributions. Framework: Based on the findings of this research, a theoretical framework that identifies the contributions of local personnel has been developed. This framework summarises the specific contributions of the local coordinator as well as local engineers. Additionally, potential project organisational structures have been presented to show the possible implementation of the framework and maximise the contribution of local personnel