In cross-border projects a lot of the problems that crop up are identified as communication gaps or as a cross-cultural problems by the people involved. In order to understand the problems they face, people talk in the language of differences in culture. Instead of understanding themselves as working in a common culture, the culture of IT maybe or digital culture or global information technology culture, they see themselves as being located in these very distinct traditional cultures. To Upadhya this shows that people, even when they are working in cyberspace most of the time, are in fact rooted in their localities. But at the same time she notices that in these dispersed teams and dispersed projects, people are not in equal positions. Upadhya finds that a system of hierarchy operates the system of control in this entire scenario.
Cross cultural communication gaps
In the IT industry people talk about ‘becoming global’, referring to a meaning of the word ‘global’ that somehow includes moulding behaviour into a model, which everybody can understand regardless of where they are from. But in spite of ‘getting global’, Upadhya finds that it really matters where a person comes from.
