The influence of cultural diversity on project management competence development - the Mediterranean experience

In the last few decades project management gained popularity in all types of organizations across many industries and increasing number of projects, programs and portfolios are professionally managed. Therefore, competent project managers and associates who can cope with problems that are occurring became the ultimate need of the business entity. However, project management competencies as a set of knowledge, personal behavior, skills and experience are very complex and therefore require acquiring a variety of elements within three different areas: contextual, behavioral and technical. Further, in order to assess and develop or improve relevant project management competencies, a system for assessment was developed and levels of competences defined within certification process. Also, considering that certification can contribute to project success by ensuring that project managers and associates have adequate competencies for managing projects, programs and portfolios, as well to integrate, plan and control the schedule-intense and unique efforts to improve overall organizational performance, authors of this paper examine the interest for project management certification in the Mediterranean countries - Croatia, Italy, Portugal and Spain. The focus of the research is on the influence of a particular culture on the attitude regarding the project management competence, so as competence-based certification. This paper therefore describes initial results on relations and influences among competence, certification, culture and business practices. The findings are based on the data provided by the national project management associations, the obtained results about the relationship among cultural characteristics, competences in project management and project success are discussed and will be used as the foundation for further research in this field. (C) 2016 Published by Elsevier Ltd.