Project management and national culture: A Dutch–French case study

This case study explores the impact of national context in the integration of project management. It analyses the implementation of project management during a Dutch/French cooperation. Evaluation and monitoring are easily adopted by the Dutch whereas they are avoided by the French partners.This qualitative and inductive research unravels the entanglement of the practice in two different contexts. It sheds light on the role of Dutch consensus as making the transfer of the practice easier. It reveals the difficulty encountered in making project management a part of French logic of “métier”. The research underlines the fact that weak and limited articulations between the individual and the group and between the persons and their activities are key factors in the appropriation of project management.This paper is also theoretically oriented. It proposes an analytical framework adapted to investigate managerial practices within their contexts of implementation.