Project management practices in Pudong, a new economic development area of Shanghai, China

In recent years, project management has gained increasing recognition as an important discipline among some management academics in China. This paper reports the outcome of a survey-based study carried out on the contemporary project management practices in Pudong area of China. The aim is to investigate the contemporary Chinese management's understanding and application of modern project management concepts and techniques. Thirty-eight enterprises from the Jinqiao Zone in Pudong, Shanghai participated in this survey. Data gathered from these enterprises pertain to 72 different recent projects. The enterprises and the projects are of different sizes, types and characteristics. We examined the different types of project management structures, techniques and tools used by these enterprises. The success of the projects and the effectiveness of their management have been gauged. Not surprisingly, the respondents who were mainly upper or senior middle managers placed great significance on the projects carried out. However, the survey also revealed that the respondents have placed different importance on the traditionally held triple objectives of projects namely, project schedule, cost and technical performance. Indeed, it was perceived that the technical performance was the most significant objective, well above the schedule cost and commercial performance objectives! We believe that this study has sketched a fairly distinctive picture of the contemporary Chinese styled project management practices from the perspective of the senior people in the organizations. © 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd and IPMA.