Key competencies for global project managers: a cross cultural study of the UK and India

Several studies have identified soft skills as the most important characteristics of successful project managers. Since management practices are known to be influenced by national culture, skills needed for successful project managers may be influenced by national culture. In this paper, we use Hofstede's national culture dimensions to investigate differences in project management skills across nations. Specifically, we review job postings to identify the key soft skill competencies of project managers from global perspectives using data from UK and India. The results indicate that national culture influences the project managers' soft skills required by organisations when implementing information systems. Further, the results show that there is no difference in terms of requirements for project management certification and personal characteristics across the two nations. However, India requires a more advanced level education than the UK and the UK requires more team skills than India.