The Role of Effective Communication in Multinational Projects

This report delves into the critical role of effective communication within multinational project teams, examining its impact on project success in global organizations. The report begins with a literature review, defining key terms such as effective communication, project team members, global projects, and multinational organizations. It explores various issues, including lack of transparency, inability to listen, unclear communication lines, and inefficient communication tools. The report analyzes the significance of effective communication management, strategizing communication management, and administrative aspects. It further discusses communication management practices within international project teams, identifying challenges like inconsistency and inefficiency in leadership. The report assesses the impact of these issues on project outcomes, emphasizing the need for mitigation strategies. It also examines the ways organizations can address these issues, including reviewing policies and choosing appropriate methods to improve communication and enhance project delivery. Finally, the report highlights the challenges faced by multinational organizations and the importance of effective communication for overcoming them.

Effective Communication among International
Project Team Members affects Project Success in
Multinational Organizations

Table of Contents
Chapter 2..........................................................................................................................................3
Literature review..............................................................................................................................3
2.1 INTRODUCTION..........................................................................................................3
2.2 DEFINITION OF TERMINOLOGY...........................................................................3
2.2.1 DEFINITION OF MAIN TERMS.............................................................................4
2.3 EXAMINING THE VARIOUS ISSUES......................................................................5
2.4 THE IMPACT OF THE THINGS YOU HAVE IDENTIFY....................................................7
2.5 ACCESSMENT OF THE VARIOUS ISSUES.........................................................................7
2.6 MITIGATION ISSUES.............................................................................................................8
2.6.1 REVIEW POLICIES..............................................................................................................8
2.6.2 CHOOSE THE APPROPRIATE DESIGN OR METHOD...................................................8
2.7 PRESENT CHALLENGES OF MULTINATIONAL ORGANISATION.............................10
2.8 CHAPTER SUMMARY..........................................................................................................11
References......................................................................................................................................12

Chapter 2
Literature review
2.1 INTRODUCTION
This research project is based on the process of communication and it aims to determine
the impact of effective communication among international project team members on the success
of the project in multinational organizations. Within this project, there will be a description on
the communication process and its management and policies within the organizations. Along
with it, this research project also covers multinational project team members as well as global
projects and multinational organizations. Moreover, there will be an examination of the different
issues and significance of effective communication management for the success of the project,
strategizing communication management and administrative aspects as well as communication
management practices.
2.2 DEFINITION OF TERMINOLOGY
Effective Communication: According to the viewpoint of Lee and Kim (2018), this term is
defined as the process of exchanging, sharing, and transferring thoughts, ideas, knowledge,
information, and opinions. This helps in easily receiving as well as understanding the message in
a well-defined and clear manner. When communication is effective then it leaves all the persons,
who are involved, satisfied and feeling accomplished. In an organization, the process of effective
communication assists in the management of manpower and developing teams. This also
facilitates in enhancement of the process of innovation as well as creativity within the workplace.
In the context of multinational organizations, effective communications assists in maintaining the
complex dealings of the business.
Project Team Members: These are the persons who are working on a single or various stages of
a project. A person is accountable to develop contributions to the process of decision-making.
This becomes significant for the members of the project team in order to assist the goals as well
as objectives of the project where the members of the team are willing to share their skills and
knowledge. A study by Kabore, Sane, and Abo (2021) indicates that, the International project
team is the one that makes optimum utilization of the resources as well as members of the team
who are based within multiple nations throughout the world. In the context of the international
project team members, the key role of these people is to contribute to the overall objectives of

the project, accomplishing individual deliverables, providing expertise, and working with the
users for establishing as well as attaining the requirements of the international business.
2.2.1 DEFINITION OF MAIN TERMS
What is communication
Communication is the process of exchanging, sharing, or transferring information, ideas,
opinions, and thoughts among people. As per the viewpoint of Lisa Nielsen (2022), Effective
business communication occurs when both management and manpower interact with each other
for meeting organizational aspirations. The key purpose of communication within the workplace
is to improve the practices of the business and minimize errors.
Figure 1:16 Types of Modes of Communication
Communication management/ policies
According to Kelechi Udoagwu (2021), Communication Management is considered as a
deliberate art of the process of planning, monitoring as well as improving the approaches of
communication within a project, team or organisation. Effective communication policies within a
business assist in setting the expectations and also manage the flow of the communication both
inside and outside the workplace. Such policies assist in meaningful and essential
communication for the productivity and morale of the employees without restricting
communication.
Effective communication
The author, Nurullayevna (2020), said that Effective Communication is an approach of
sharing, exchanging and transferring knowledge, ideas, thoughts, information, and opinions to

other people in a clear and well-defined way. For communication to be effective, this must be
clear, complete, correct, compassionate and concise. One of the major benefits of effective
communication includes that it helps in the growth of the organization in a fast manner and
retains the manpower also.
Multinational project team members
Lucy Brown (2021), stated that project team members are those key people who work on
the different phases of the project. The primary responsibilities of project team members include
working with the users in order to determine as well as accomplishing the needs of the
organization, meeting individual deliverables and many more. In the context to multinational
project team members, the role of such people is to mainly contribute to the process of decision-
making within multiple organizations throughout the world. This becomes significant for the
multinational project team members to support the goals and objectives of the projects.
Global projects
As per the viewpoint of Jeremy McAbee (2021), global projects become increasingly' in
this modern era. The author stated that a global project is defined as one that provides assistance
in utilising the resources as well as members of the team who are based in various nations
throughout the world. With the global projects, various project teams and people are spread
throughout the different nations wherein a single individual works on a single project at the same
time. This concept generally face a situation where the members of the project or different parts
of the project team get dispersed on locations that are belonging to different time zones.
Multinational organizations
As per James Chen (2022), multinational organisations usually located in multiple
countries with a centralised head office where they coordinate international management. These
kinds of organisations have facilities as well as other assets within at least a single country
instead of its home country. Multinational organisations can have a favorable economic effect on
the nation where the business takes place. These organizations are also known as transnational
organisations that are registered and operated in more than a single country at a time. Basically,
these organisations have their headquarters in a country and operates entirely or partially owned
subsidiaries within the other nations.
Literature Gap in relation to the given study is communication management, policies and about
multinational project team members. For further improvement of the limitations various sources

and articles can be used to further enhance the knowledge and presentation of the study. That
improvement will also be used in another researches as the previous problem will be addressed.
2.3 EXAMINING THE VARIOUS ISSUES
Significance of effective communication management for project success
As per the viewpoint of Aastha Shaw (2022), the management of the effective
communication is significant for the success of the project because it allows a project to progress
in a smooth way and in a defined time period. This also makes sure that members of the team are
aligned on the objectives of the project as well as understand what is expected of them exactly.
This also facilitates in developing trust so that each person works better together from the
starting of the project to its ending. However, in case if there is lack of effective communication
management, then the success of the project can be hindered in a great way. Several
communication management issues can create a barrier in success of a project and these are
discussed as under:
2. Lack of transparency and trust: This is extremely typical for communicating anything
when there is absence or lack of transparency as well as trust. For instance, if the
employees of the multinational organisations believe that they are holding something
back then it will be anxious, some will speculate and as an outcome, this will be more
crucial for them to process any effort that is made by the organisation to communicate
with them.
3. Inability to listen to others: Active listening is considered as a significant aspect of the
effective communication. Inability to listen to others is another kind of issue in which an
individual cannot engage with someone in case if it is not listening to them. As it will
tend to make assumptions regarding the needs that are based on their perceptions versus
actuality.
Strategizing communication management and administrative aspects
In context to communication management and administrative aspect, there are different
issues and some of these are discussed as follow:
2. Unclear line of communication: Without proper communication flow, employees of
organisation are uncertain about responding answers to whom which creates a lack of
accountability as well as confusion. In such way, not having a clear line of

communication makes effectively communicate top-level information to the employees a
challenge.
3. Ineffective communication tools: It is another issue related to administrative aspect of
communication that using wrong and inappropriate communication tools can cause
miscommunications, delayed response times, information loss and distractions.
Communication management practices within international project team’s members
Various issues are concerned with communication management practices within
international project team members and some of them are as follows:
2. Inconsistency in communication: In context to international project team members,
because of communication inconsistency people may not provide enough information
regarding changes in strategy at the workplace which can result in ineffective results.
3. Inefficiency in leadership: There are several cases where there is poor or zero
communication by leadership. Due to this international project team members can face
difficulty in working with the team from across distributed places. This ultimately leads
to misunderstanding and stalled projects which may be a great challenge.
Figure 2:Communication with customers: Five essential factors
2.4 THE IMPACT OF THE THINGS YOU HAVE IDENTIFY
The communication has main impact on the overall organization as it leads to affect the
relationship of the management. Communication in the management is known to bring better
clarity in the direction of the business. Moreover, the level of engagement can be improved in the
work and the management policies. When the policies are made as per the company and its
employees then the team building is improved. Due to which this effective communication
among international project team members can be achieved. Moreover, the company will not be
able to stick to the schedule and project planning will not be done in a planned manner which can

further result in the further delays in project execution, completion and various other functions.
In order to protect the failures in the global projects, the international project team members are
required to fill the gap of inefficient communication by making use of effective communication.
The failure and delay in the global project execution as an issue of communication challenges
necessitates to be managed properly. That is why, the multinational organizations should grasp
and identify certain conditions that will serve as indicators for the training needs of their team
members.
2.5 ACCESSMENT OF THE VARIOUS ISSUES
There are various ways that can be used to resolve and solve the issues of effective
communication. In addition to this, various multinational organizations are to take care of their
international reputations. As there are various people which are involved in it at global level as a
result their inability to train and develop their international project team members on how to
achieve effective communication can be a main issue. When executing the global projects by
employing the necessary knowledge and skills and this may result in to the poor project delivery
because instructions and requirements were not effectively communicated in the workings. Due
to which the ineffective communication of international project team members has been
criticized by different sectors globally.
2.6 MITIGATION ISSUES
As from the above projection of the information, it can be said that there are about various issues
related to effective communication management, strategies linked to it, various practises which
are involved in effective communication management. In relation to the project management,
communication is one of the essential element to bring better success with progress. With the
help of better communication, the company will be able to enhance the level of trust in the
company. The project team comprises of various professional which all belong to the various
backgrounds with different bunch of skills. In order to mitigate the issues, the company can
make use of phone calls, Email, surveys, various presentations, project plan and many others.
Managing business is one of the complex job to succeed at the workplace and there are various
theories which are available for companies they can use from it. Such as Fayol's Principles of
Administrative management, Luther Gulick and the POSDCORB Theory, (James and
Ashirkulovna, 2022). Mooney’s Administrative Management Theory and many others. Various

companies are required to make use of various preventive measures to deal with the above
mentioned issues of the company.
2.6.1 REVIEW POLICIES
There are various policies which can be considered and the old policies can be reviewed in order
to bring better changes in the management. Communication is one of the main part of the
management and as international project team members comprise of various individuals which
are engaged at the different levels. Moreover, in multinational companies from the initial stage to
final stage it completely depends upon the effective way of communication. That is why the
members of an international project team must have proper communication skills in relation to
get the project completed properly. It can be seen that due to the changing nature of global
projects that is their different time zones, cultural backgrounds, various environmental elements
and the complexity of projects. There are some kind of communication challenges which may
lead to poor execution of the project (Turakulovna and Ashirkulovna, 2022).
2.6.2 CHOOSE THE APPROPRIATE DESIGN OR METHOD
Research methodology is defined as the term which is explained as the appropriate set of systems
which are used in order to outline and observe the information which is linked with the topic. It
is also known to let the readers evaluate the overall reliability of the information. This
methodology covers the right procedures which are utilised to examine about the information
related to the topic and it is one of the significant area in the research project (Moon,2022).
Research philosophy
Research philosophy is characterized into two parts such as positivism and interpretivism
philosophy. In this the researcher will choose the positivism research philosophy because it helps
in gathering the quantitative data for the research. Additionally, the research philosophy displays
the defined structure with the aim of conducting the whole research thoroughly.
Research Choice
It is further allocated into two parts such as quantitative and qualitative method and in relative to
this study, the researcher will reflect the quantitative method as it is linked to collect the
numerical data in the present research (Thorpe, 2022).
Research Strategy

The term research strategy is accessible in several forms that is interview, surveys, observation
and many more. In relation to the present research, the researcher will choose the survey strategy
because it aids in getting the numerical data from various respondents. Research strategy is
known to be the cost effective methods that is why the researcher will be able to conduct whole
research in low cost.
Research Instrument
Surveys, checklists questionnaires, tests are some of the types of research instruments. From all
the options available the researcher will select the questionnaire as its instrument because under
this the researcher can gather the data in a correct manner in relation to the topic.
Data collection
In the data collection there are two forms which are involved in it such as primary and secondary
data collection. In this research data collection’s both method will be utilised since it supports in
collecting the information directly from the respondents. In addition to this, there are various
other sources that is journals, books and many others (Grimm and Schwartz, 2021).
2.7 PRESENT CHALLENGES OF MULTINATIONAL ORGANISATION
As there are various challenges which are faced by the multinational companies such as the
language barrier when the company in involved in the international business. Then it can be seen
that various people speak different language and it is also essential to communicate the message
properly. There various issues that can take place due to the cultural difference as a country is
made up of various culture and languages. Another present issue is related to managing the
global teams as all the people live in different part which means it can be difficult to account for
language barriers, various cultural differences, time zones, and varying levels of technology
access and reliance (Knight, 2019). Moreover, the issues are related to currency exchange,
inflation rates and also the tax competition, political instability, different demographics,
infrastructures and many others. As selecting the best place for the MNC can be a challenge in
which the demand is high, that is why they are to book large office spaces before commercial
projects can be fully constructed and handed over. The term communication is defined as the the
process of sharing or transferring, exchanging, the information, ideas, opinions and thoughts
among the people. Effective business communication takes place when both management and
manpower interact with each other for meeting organisational aspirations. The main purpose of

the communication within workplace is to improve the practices of the business and minimising
the errors.

2.8 CHAPTER SUMMARY
From the above analysis, it can be summarised that the research covered the various impacts
in relation to the effective communication among international project team members. Its main
role in improving the overall international project team member's performance, with the help of
using most effective communication the company can improve the overall productivity in the
international project team members in multinational organisational growth by bridging the
ineffective communication gap by using NISSAN Motor Manufacturing Sunderland branch
office staffs as a case study. The necessity for the effective communication among international
project team members and its problems and prospects was also explored.