  Cross cultural research projects are becoming a norm in our global world.
More and more projects are being executed using teams from eastern and western
cultures. Cultural competence might help project managers to achieve project
goals and avoid potential risks in cross cultural project environments and
would also support them to promote creativity and motivation through flexible
leadership. In our paper we introduce an idea for constructing an information
system, a cross cultural knowledge space, which could support cross cultural
communication, collaborative learning experiences and time based project
management functions. The case cultures in our project are Finnish and
Japanese. The system can be used both in virtual and in physical spaces for
example to clarify cultural business etiquette. The core of our system design
will be based on cross cultural ontology, and the system implementation on XML
technologies. Our approach is a practical, step by step example of constructive
research. In our paper we shortly describe Hofstede's dimensions for assessing
cultures as one example of a larger framework for our study. We also discuss
the concept of time in cultural context.
