An Empirical Study of the Importance and Uniqueness of Stakeholder Management In China

Abstract

Chinese economic reform in the early 80s had introduced into China modern project management theories and techniques, which have then been widely observed in various industries and business sectors ever since. However, empirical studies of project stakeholder practice presented before indicate that Chinese people have learned the definition of modern projects but they give a new definition to project success according to their own working environment (Lee, 2003), and that stakeholder management is one of the areas where major differences between Chinese and Western projects exist. Therefore, understanding the uniqueness of stakeholder relationship in Chinese projects is one of the key factors for project success. This paper a) explores informal relationship between key stakeholders in Chinese projects and b) examines the influences their relationships have on project success in China. The final findings of this paper aim to provide best practice for understanding and managing key stakeholders in Chinese projects.