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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.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a new trend that has swept the world of business by storm. With globalization proceeding unabated and CSR acquiring global interest and resonance, examining how companies can make adaptations to their CSR in an international context becomes a timely and important issue.

Drawing on institutional theory, this study aims to identify three types of host country institutional complexity that accompany the internationalization process, namely, cultural, regulatory and economic, hence necessitating nuanced CSR adaptations in context and as illustrated in this paper requiring different tailoring and adaptation of CSR programs and interventions between developed and developing countries.

The authors propose a series of research propositions for exploration toward broadening and deepening the understanding of the above institutional complexities and the necessity of CSR tailoring and adaptation to accompany the internationalization process.

The paper is one of the first to highlight the necessity of CSR tailoring in the context of the internationalization process while considering host country institutional complexity highlighting nuanced differences between developed and developing country landscapes and implications for how multinational corporations should approach CSR in these differentiated environments.

The purpose of this paper is to address four questions: what are the drawbacks of an over reliance on the objectivist tradition in culture in international business (CIB) scholarship? Is a shift from mono-paradigmatic to multi-paradigmatic cultural research justified? What explains scholars’ hesitation in engaging in multi-paradigmatic studies? What arguments can we offer to convince them otherwise?

Informed by the critical perspective, this paper encourages a shift from mono-paradigmatic to multi-paradigmatic cultural studies. Guided by an emancipatory interest, and treating the field of culture studies as a complex system, this paper offers an integrative complexity (IC) based argument in favor of multi-paradigmatic studies. It argues that multi-paradigmatic studies allow scholars to employ higher IC than mono-paradigmatic studies, resulting in more innovative research outputs.

While mono-paradigmatic studies can achieve either predictability of output or in-depth understanding of cultural phenomena, multi-paradigmatic studies are capable of attaining both. The authors illustrate this through the example of a recent multi-paradigmatic study.

This paper does not offer insights for operationalizing multi-paradigmatic research, nor does it address factors other than IC that may impede scholars from engaging in such studies.

Shifting from mono-paradigmatic to multi-paradigmatic studies will enable scholars to address questions hitherto left unaddressed in CIB literature, facilitate a better understanding of new organizational forms, and redress the power disequilibrium between different paradigmatic schools. Implications are also offered for the training of cultural researchers in business schools.

This paper is the first of its kind to relate IC to merits of multi-paradigmatic cultural studies.

Based on attributional complexity (AC) theory, the authors empirically examine the impact of biculturalism on cross-cultural adjustment and the degree to which people make isomorphic attributions, critical for cross-cultural leadership effectiveness.

Using questionnaire surveys, the authors first validate measures in a validation sample and then empirically test the model in a second sample, using structural equation modeling.

The authors’ findings reveal an empirical connection between biculturalism and AC on the one hand, while also showing support for the relationship between biculturalism and attributional knowledge. Findings also demonstrate that biculturalism is related to attributional accuracy in cross-cultural contexts via an attributional mechanism, as suggested by AC theory.

First, AC theory emerges as one with excellent prospects for explaining intercultural work in multicultural settings. Biculturalism's links to AC and attributional knowledge are critical for extensions to cross-cultural leadership effectiveness, and international knowledge transfer, interesting and high potential research avenues for the discipline.

The authors’ findings carry a host of managerial implications. AC training can provide all international assignees with the necessary foundational skills and learning abilities to successfully interact in the host country setting with local nationals. This study also suggests that managers on international assignments should focus their efforts on acquiring attributional knowledge because it can provide a solid boost to their understanding of the local culture.

One’s understanding of biculturals and their cross-cultural management competencies is very limited. The authors provide empirical support for the hypotheses, hitherto unexamined in extant literature.

This article aims to explore the implications of means–ends decoupling at the state level for the implementation of the global model of the research university by the deans and department heads. Means–ends decoupling at the state level implies that the policies and practices of the state are disconnected from its core goal of creating public welfare.

Data that form the basis of analysis were collected through twenty-four semi-structured interviews with deans and department heads from the humanities, social sciences and natural sciences who were in their positions during 2010–2014, at two Ukrainian universities.

Apart from means–ends decoupling at the state level, which resulted in institutional complexity, case universities also sustained means–ends decoupling at the organisational level, which led to cultural complexity. Institutional and cultural complexities experienced by the deans and department heads, as well as their practices and values deviated from the global model of the research university, entailed them sustaining means–ends decoupling at the individual level. The degree of means–ends decoupling maintained by the deans and department heads at the individual level varied depending on organisational, disciplinary and individual cultural dimensions.

This research contributes to the policy development and implementation studies highlighting how mismatches in policies at both state and organisational levels hinder the achievement of the intended outcomes.

Understanding the impact of project complexity on the mega construction project success will help improve the efficiency of project management. However, the influencing mechanism of project complexity on project success has not been clearly depicted. This paper aims to divide project complexity and project success into five dimensions, trying to explore the impact of different complexity combinations on mega construction project success.

This study applies the qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) method to find out the impact of the combinations of different project complexities on the every dimension of mega construction project success. First, 21 cases were interviewed and scored in five categories of project complexities and five aspects of project success. Second, with the QCA program, the combinations of different project complexities influencing every aspect of mega construction project success was obtained.

This research found that high organizational complexity or a combination of high environmental complexity and goal complexity can lead to serious schedule delays of mega construction projects, high technological complexity and goal complexity are important reasons for cost overrun, high technological complexity or a combination of high environmental complexity and low organizational complexity usually lead to low quality of mega construction projects, high goal complexity and cultural complexity are important factors affecting the key stakeholders' satisfaction and high technological complexity and environmental complexity are the reasons for the poor sustainability of mega construction projects.

This study clearly reveals the influencing mechanism of project complexity on mega construction project success, which can help the project managers to understand and assess the complexity of mega construction projects and accurately predict their negative impacts on the mega construction projects.

The purpose of this paper is to identify factors in avoidance of corruption in international expansion.

Building on extensive literature, the paper includes three complexities, namely cultural, economic and regulation associated with corruption in an international context.

The paper highlights that corruption can be addressed by three types of complexities.

The findings of this study highlights the importance of corporate social responsibility for firms intend to expand internationally.

The paper is one of the first to highlight the effect of corporate social responsibility on corruption in an international context.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the application of a hermeneutic-based approach as innovative way to study the Cultural Heritage management in a mesoeconomic space.

The paper builds a theoretical framework based on the analysis of relevant literature in the field of cultural economics, heritage economics and conservation and restoration techniques. Then, after having defined the conceptual hypothesis, a hermeneutical interpretative model is designed for the analysis of the processes of Cultural Heritage management with particular regard to the strategies of stakeholder engagement.

The research shows how the mesoeconomic space is that border area where it is possible to solve more easily the conflicts that arise as a result of the different expectations of stakeholders. Hermeneutical analysis, applied in iterative form, allows us to find common connections, points of contact and convergences between the interpretative horizons of the various stakeholders.

The application of the interpretative model allows the identification of the expectations of stakeholders, improving the knowledge of the tangible and intangible attributes of works of art, in order to design appropriate interventions of restoration, conservation and valorization.

The new model of analysis, based on hermeneutic methodology, is designed to understand and describe the social and economic relations between the different stakeholders involved in the management of Cultural Heritage.

This paper examines for the first time the Cultural Heritage sector within the mesoeconomic area between the micro and the macroeconomy. In addition to this mesoeconomic analysis and conceptual approach, the authors introduce as methodology the economic hermeneutics that represents an innovative tool in the field of economic and business disciplines.

The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how the particular culture within which research is conducted and its norms and values can give rise to additional challenges and complications for the researcher when the research area is sensitive in nature.

Drawing on research on sexual harassment of working women in Sri Lanka, the researcher engages in self and methodological reflections to elucidate the many challenges faced.

Carrying out sensitive research in an Asian cultural context, with various stereotyping cultural norms, values and beliefs can give rise to additional culture-specific challenges for the researcher, even when the researcher is a cultural insider. How these cultural complexities influence the manner in which the participants respond to data collection and the manner in which the researcher is seen and understood by others are explained. Strategies to overcome these challenges are discussed in light of the cultural competencies propose by Deardorff and Sewyer et al.

The paper highlights the need for researchers engaged in sensitive research to carefully plan and conduct their research, being mindful not only to the sensitive nature of the topic, but also to the cultural edifices and ethos.

The influence of cultural context in conducting sensitive research is not sufficiently addressed. Culture-specific challenges that can arise in cultures outside the West, such as Asia, have specifically being neglected. This paper addresses this knowledge gap by focusing on the culture-specific challenges faced by researchers, whether they are cultural insiders or outsiders.

The purpose of this paper is to emphasise projects as being part of a social process. It aims to move away from the traditional views that lay emphases on linear and predictable models of project practice to one that better highlights the complex nature of human interrelations.

The work reported upon involved a case study where one of the authors was embedded as a reflective practitioner undertaking action learning and elicitation of knowledge from colleagues using soft systems methodology as a primary research method.

Findings from the doctoral research implemented in the Middle East, indicate that socio‐cultural factors in project contexts affect knowledge creation processes critical to organisational change.

Research results benefited from viewing the project organization as a “complex adaptive system” with a structurally open project entity facilitating the contextual interconnections necessary for detecting and creating environmental change.

Pragmatic knowledge was seen as emergent through movement of human interactions and contributed to the portrayal of the project organisation as a “becoming” cognitive system whose resilience is dependent upon producing meaning as opposed to processing information. When change management is viewed in a multicultural context such as this, within this paradigm, then greater emphasis will likely be placed upon complexity and uncertainty issues arising out of the interplay of culture and the political aspects of managing change in a more empathic way.

Complexity in project management and theory has traditionally focussed on technical and structural aspects of project practice; but given the heterogeneous nature of human capital residing in today's organisations, aligning social systems with nature where disorder and uncertainty prevail, provides a more relevant ecological model of social analysis. The paper shows that the challenge today for those working in culturally pluralistic project environments is to make sense of such multiple realities and disparities in language to effectively manage the inherent power relationships that influence project outcomes.