Open Access

Felix Rothas

• Comau S.p.A. -Powertrain- (PWT) mainly manages its projects on a multinational level. In the past, several issues were identified some of which can be attributed to the complexity of a matrix organizational structure. Therefore, the aim of this thesis is to investigate whether PWT project teams are still experiencing certain issues while working in multi-country projects and to develop certain proposals for improvement by analysing the possible causes. For this purpose a survey was conducted among project participants to identify the present issues and to discover the reasons for their occurrence. In addition, an analysis of cultural differences was performed also based on secondary data to examine the influences of cultural differences on employees’ perceptions. The results of the analysis indicated that some of the project teams are still facing certain issues while collaborating across regions and functions. Therefore, the importance of a better communication of certain defined roles was identified. In addition, an increasing awareness of the Responsibility Assignment Matrix (RAM) as a tool for also obtaining the overall agreement of project responsibilities and as team building measure was recognized as important. Moreover, to obtain new insights into present issues from the perspectives of the project teams and for further research purpose, the execution of a workshop including all survey participants was stated as potentially worthwhile.