When Cultures Meet: Modelling Cross-Cultural Knowledge Spaces

Abstract: Cross cultural research projects are becoming a norm in our global world. More and more projects are being executed using teams from eastern and western cultures. Cultural competence might help project managers to achieve project goals and avoid potential risks in cross cultural project environments and would also support them to promote creativity and motivation through flexible leadership. In our paper we introduce an idea for constructing an information system, a cross cultural knowledge space, which could support cross cultural communication, collaborative learning experiences and time based project management functions. The case cultures in our project are Finnish and Japanese. The system can be used both in virtual and in physical spaces for example to clarify cultural business etiquette. The core of our system design will be based on cross cultural ontology, and the system implementation on XML technologies. Our approach is a practical, step by step example of constructive research. In our paper we shortly describe Hofstede's dimensions for assessing cultures as one example of a larger framework for our study. We also discuss the concept of time in cultural context.