Take Your Partners! Transcending national culture to implement diverse international projects: the supremacy of individuals and influence of organisations

Globalisation of the world economy and trade, internationalisation of industries and organisations, born-global firms: these have all resulted in international working becoming the norm for ordinary people. Working internationally presents particular challenges over and above simply living in multicultural societies. International project work involves a further set of challenges, skills and keys to success due to constraints on resource, temporary teams, demands of delivery and time/scope limits. Based on an extensive series of in-depth interviews with participants and leaders in a 11-year series of different, but connected, international projects, this article explores the keys to success and reasons for failure in international working. These projects involved organisations and individuals in the higher education industry in 10 countries. This paper suggests that organisational culture and structure is a greater influence on individual attitude and behaviour than national culture. Individual attitude and behaviour is the key driver of success and relationship sustainability in international project working.