Cultural differences and process adaptation in international R&D project management

In the era of globalization, Western companies have started to explore China as a source of technology. Yet, Western R&D project management processes in China are frequently facing many problems. Some of the problems can be conceptualized by analyzing a number of known cultural contrasts between Chinese and Western ways of business interactions, such as collectivism versus individualism, personal relationship and group harmony versus impersonal contractual attitude, strong versus weak uncertainty avoidance, etc. A case study on Alcatel-Lucent China Research Technology Center shows how R&D project process can be effectively tuned to align with local cultural environment through a new generation stage-gate process model. The overseas company´s branch has recognized the need to make its process both faster and more effective for telecommunication software development, and has gained remarkable project success. At the same time, lessons and recommendations on the adaptability to Chinese style business and management interactions will be drawn from the case study for international companies that locate R&D projects in China.