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The purpose of this paper is to examine challenges faced by senior construction managers in managing cross‐cultural complexity and uncertainty. The rationale was to identify the key strategies that are considered essential for managing cross‐cultural complexity and uncertainty.

Interviews with 20 senior construction managers, ten in Kenya and ten in the UK, were recorded, transcribed and entered into the qualitative research software NVivo. Validity and reliability were achieved by first assessing the plausibility in terms of already existing knowledge on some of the cultural issues raised by participants. The findings were presented to the participants through workshops and group discussions.

The emerging key issues suggested that project leaders need to learn how to control their own characteristics and to use them selectively. An effective multicultural construction project team should focus on team output and attributes that characterise a multicultural team as a social entity.

Findings indicate that the role of construction project managers has significantly changed over the past two decades. In order to deal with cross‐cultural uncertainty, project leaders must have superior multicultural and interpersonal skills when managing global multicultural heavy engineering projects.

The research shows that leaders of global construction project teams need a good understanding of their culture, environment and the value of their individual contributions.

Integrating anxiety and uncertainty management (AUM) theory and theory of organizing, this study aims to contribute to the knowledge management literature by examining the interdependent and bidirectional nature of knowledge transfer between expatriates and host country nationals (HCNs). Specifically, the authors investigate how receivers’ cognitive response to senders’ behaviors during their interactions becomes an important conduit between senders’ behaviors and the successful transfer of knowledge.

The authors used the actor partner interdependence model to analyze data from 107 expatriate-HCN dyads. The authors collected the responses of these expatriate-HCN dyads in Shanghai, Taipei, Hong Kong, Vietnam, South Korea, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and India.

Receivers’ interaction anxiety and uncertainty, as a response to senders’ relationship building behaviors, mediate the relationship between senders’ relationship building behaviors and successful knowledge transfer. When senders are expatriates, senders’ communication patience and relationship building behaviors interact to reduce the direct and indirect effects of both receivers’ interaction anxiety and uncertainty. However, when senders are HCNs, the moderation and moderated mediation models are not supported.

The study contributes to the knowledge management literature by investigating knowledge transfer between expatriates and HCNs using an interpersonal cross-cultural communication lens. The authors make refinements to AUM theory by going beyond the sender role to highlighting the interdependence between senders and receivers in the management of anxiety and uncertainty which, in turn, influences the effectiveness of cross-cultural communication. The study is also unique in that the authors underscore an important yet understudied construct, communication patience, in the successful transfer of knowledge.

The paper seeks to examine cross‐cultural differences in how consumers evaluate “scratch and save” (SAS) promotions (which are characterized by uncertainty of savings outcomes) between Canada and Korea, where the promotion tool is widely used but the countries have different cultural values.

An experiment was conducted to examine cross‐cultural differences in SAS promotion evaluations between Canada (n=77) and Korea (n=78).

SAS promotions effectively stimulate favorable shopping intentions in Canada, a country with a low uncertainty avoidance culture, more so than in Korea, a country with a high uncertainty avoidance culture. However, subjects in Korea show consistently higher savings expectations from SAS promotions than subjects in Canada. Thus, the results report that consumers with the highest savings expectations do not necessarily have the highest intention to shop. In addition, in Korea, a SAS promotion with guaranteed minimum savings is found to be very effective due to reduced ambiguity about its outcome.

The study suggests cross‐cultural differences in the applicability of the disjunction effect.

The findings suggest that when SAS promotions are presented in a country with high uncertainty avoidance, retailers should explicitly indicate the value of the guaranteed minimum savings. By promising guaranteed savings, retailers can reduce consumers' relatively high concerns about unknown SAS outcomes, which results in a greater advantage in building favorable perceptions.

Very little work has been undertaken into SAS promotions and no known empirical research has been undertaken into cross‐cultural differences. This paper fills some of the gaps.

Given the rising expansion of Western multinational companies (MNCs) to the African contexts, the development of expatriates and local employees has become increasingly important to the human resource management of these MNCs. This paper aims to provide critical lessons on cross-cultural communication competences for Western expatriates working in the sub-Saharan Africa business environment.

This paper is a qualitative phenomenology that makes use of lived experiences of senior expatriate staff working in Ghana in the form of direct interviews.

Results showed that cross-cultural communication competence is very important for Western expatriates’ functioning in sub-Saharan Africa. The findings also established a plethora of cross-cultural communication skills that are essential for Western expatriates’ successful adaptation and work outcomes in Africa.

This research argues that there is the need for the appreciations of the differing cultural patterns of expatriates and local staff, and this provides the underlying assumptions of intercultural and cross-cultural communication in global business.

A critical perspective of international business that has scarcely been studied offers lessons for Western expatriates working in sub-Saharan Africa.

Despite the major information technology investments made by public institutions, the reuse of e-government services remains an issue as citizens hesitate to use e-government websites regularly. The purpose of this study is to investigate the cross-country determinants of e-government reuse intention by proposing a theoretical model that integrates constructs from (1) the Delone and McLean IS success model (i.e. system quality, service quality, information quality, perceived value and user satisfaction); (2) the trust and risk models (i.e. citizen trust, overall risk, time risk, privacy risk and psychological risks); and (3) Hofstede's cultural model (i.e. uncertainty avoidance, masculinity, individualism and cross-cultural trust and risk).

Based on data from interviews with 81 Kuwaiti citizens and surveys of 1,829 Kuwaiti and Polish citizens, this study conducted comprehensive, cross-cultural and comparative analyses of e-government reuse intention in a cross-country setting.

The results show that trust is positively associated with citizens' intention to reuse e-government services, whereas risk is negatively associated with citizens' perceived value. This study also found that masculinity–femininity and uncertainty avoidance are positively associated with the intention to reuse e-government services and that individualism–collectivism has no significant relationship with reuse intention. This study's findings have important implications for researchers and practitioners seeking to understand and improve e-government success in cross-country settings.

This study developed a parsimonious model of quality, trust, risk, culture and technology reuse that captures country-specific cultural contexts and enables us to conduct a comprehensive, cross-cultural and comparative analysis of e-government reuse intention in the cross-country setting of Kuwait and Poland.

The purpose of this paper is to present literature that suggests that project teams comprising members from culturally diverse backgrounds bring fresh ideas and new approaches to problem solving. The challenge, however, is that they also introduce different understandings and expectations regarding team dynamics and integration. The question becomes how a project manager can effectively work and influence a multicultural construction project team, at the same time being attentive to the diversity and creating the structure required for success.

Using a qualitative methodology, participants of heavy construction engineering projects revealed a number of multi‐dimensional factors that either facilitated or limited the effectiveness of multicultural teamwork. These were synthesised into a framework of eight key dimensions that need to be considered when managing multicultural teams. The identified key dimensions include: leadership style, team selection and composition process, cross‐cultural management of team development process, cross‐cultural communication, cross‐cultural collectivism, cross‐cultural trust, cross‐cultural management and cross‐cultural uncertainty.

The proposed framework has implications for construction managers who work with multicultural teams and are committed to improving team performance and productivity. The utilisation of the proposed framework would not instantly transform multicultural teams into high‐performing ones; however, it does identify eight key cross‐cultural dimensions, which need to be considered.

Though the benefits of culturally diverse teams have been acknowledged within the industry, the study highlighted that cultural differences among project teams can cause conflict, misunderstanding and poor project performance.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the goal commitment and satisfaction of participants from two different cultures when given a compliance goal versus no goal. Using a sample of 104 Mexican and U.S. participants, we found significant differences in uncertainty avoidance but not power distance between the participants of the two cultures. In addition, uncertainty avoidance had a significant effect on both goal commitment and satisfaction regardless of the goal condition. Finally, there was a significant goal by country interaction, which shows that Mexican participants, rather than U.S. participants, were more committed and marginally more satisfied with a compliance goal than no goal. Despite differences between the cultures in uncertainty avoidance and a direct effect of uncertainty avoidance on individual reactions to goals, the interaction was not explained by uncertainty avoidance.

Addresses the cultural dimension of uncertainty avoidance (UA), of US and German staffing decisions – but uses a different viewpoint. Discusses and challenges the hitherto accepted meaning of individual positions of countries UA, using Höfstede’s guide. Adumbrates the concept of UA at the two levels of society and organization, linking the two levels. Concludes that low Höfstede UA index does not necessarily mean no or little need for certainty even in France and Denmark.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impacts of ambidextrous capabilities, explorative capability and exploitative capability on product innovation performance in the context of internationalization and cross-cultural environment; and to examine the moderating effects of CEO’s preference of risks and opportunities in the international market on the relationship between ambidextrous capabilities and multinational enterprises’ (MNEs) product innovation performance.

Data were collected from 189 MNEs located in China, which develop international business through export, outsourcing, foreign equity investment or foreign direct investment. Measurement reliability and validity were examined and hierarchical linear regression was used to test the hypotheses.

Results indicated that both explorative and exploitative capability are positively related to MNEs’ new product development and commercialization of Chinese MNEs; and CEO’s preference of risks and opportunities in international market plays a significant moderating role in the two phases of product innovation.

This study extends organizational ambidextrous capabilities theory to better understand the effects of explorative capability and exploitative capability on innovation performance in the context of internationalization and national cultural differences. Sample constitution is a possible limitation.

MNEs, especially those from emerging economies, should develop both explorative and exploitative capability to be flexible and competitive in dealing with cultural differences. fully take risks and opportunities should be taken into consideration regarding the international market and national cultural differences, and take an effective contingency strategy, driven by the ambidextrous capabilities toward new product innovation development and commercialization.

An empirical examination of how ambidextrous capabilities impact on Chinese MNEs’ new product development and commercialization connects the organizational ambidexterity theory to the innovation and characteristics of upper echelons.

Uncertainty-identity theory serves as our guiding theoretical framework to explore subjective uncertainty, especially uncertainty about self and identity, and the ways in which communication within groups provides valuable social identity information to group members as a means to manage subjective uncertainty.

We review and synthesize research in communication science and social identity theory, specifically uncertainty-identity theory, to compare diverse understandings of uncertainty and the identity-shaping function of communication within groups.

Uncertainty inherent in dyadic interactions has received extensive attention in communication science. However, the identity-defining function of communication that flows within and between groups as a means to resolving uncertainty about subjectively important matters has received little attention in both social psychology and communication science.

We explore how communication that flows from in-group sources (e.g., leaders) serves to shape a shared reality and identity for group members while providing a framework for self-definition. We propose an agenda for future research that would benefit from an articulation of the importance of communication in the shaping and management of identity-uncertainty.

Uncertainty arousing rhetoric by influential in-group sources, such as leaders and the media can have serious implications for intergroup relations, as uncertain individuals seek distinctive and tight-knit groups and autocratic leaders under conditions of heightened uncertainty. The role that communication plays in shaping clear and distinct identities as a panacea for identity-uncertainty has implications for the intragroup normative structure of the group and for intergroup relations.