Week 11
Topic 10: Working With Cross Cultural Teams
200864 Managing in the Global Environment
Teams
Edgar Schein (2004, p.36) defines culture as ‘a set of
basic assumptions – shared solutions to universal
problems of external adaptation (how to survive) and
internal integration (how to stay together) - which
have evolved over time and are handed down from
one generation to the next’.
Teams
Often the term group and team are used interchangeably.
A group is a collection of individuals who coordinate their
individual efforts. On the other hand, a team is a group of people
who share a common team purpose and a number of challenging
goals. Members of the team are mutually committed to the goals and
to each other.
Externally oriented teams are made up of people from other
business units, functions, regions, external advisors, customers.
They respond more readily to changing characteristics of work,
technology and customer demands (Anocona & Bresman 2007).
Can create a different culture
Benefits of Global Teams
Enhance quality of decision making
Greater range of perspectives/opinions
New way to look at old problem
Greater creativity and innovation
Minimise risk of uniformity/pressure to
conform
Challenges of Global Teams
Potential for:
Increased conflict, mistrust and
communication problems
Increased frustration and dissatisfaction
Increased turnover
Increased social stress
Cultural Challenges
Decision making
Hierarchy – power distance
Low context vs high context communication
Language fluency
Culture and Conflict
Dignit
Face Honor
y
Western Eastern cultures Brazil, Spain, Saudi
Self worth through Respect of others –
Reputation
achievement position
Indirect conflict – 3rd Direct confrontation –
Confrontation directly
person blame
Slow anger Emotion is shame Shame and anger
Third party facilitates
Third party intervention Third party intervention
and autocratic
Brett (2018) Intercultural challenges in managing workplace conflict – a call for research Cross Cultural & Strategic Management 25:1
Virtual Teams
Dispersed teams who rely on information and
communications technology to conduct much
of their work together.
May be different corporate, function,
professional and national cultures.
Need for trust and social
integration.
Trust
• Trust is the foundation for everything we do (Feri 2018)
• The lubricant of social interaction (Gambetta 1998)
• Willingness of a party to be vulnerable to the actions of
another party based on the expectations that the other will
peform a particular action to the trustor, irrespective of the
ability of monitor or control the other party (Mayer, Davis
& Schoorman 1995)
• Making oneself vulnerable is taking risks!
Trust
Trust is seen as social lubricant or glue of
virtual world.
It facilitates co-operation and enables social
interaction.
Teams with trust have more
optimism, enthusiasm and
initiation that leads to higher
attractions, agreement and co-
operation
Select the right technology
Explicit knowledge can be written down in manuals,
spreadsheets etc. and can be transferred easily.
Deep level tacit knowledge comes from experience
and reflection and best transferred face to face to
allow for questions dialogue and non verbal
communication.
Strategies for managing teams
Task Strategies Process strategies
Creating a sense of purpose Team building
Structuring the task Choose how to communicate
Assigning roles and Eliciting participation
responsibilities Resolving conflict
Reaching decisions Evaluating performance
Summary
Successful multicultural teams have the ability to
integrate contributions by team members
Learnt to find valuable solutions
Learnt to understand that cultural differences provide
organisations with a range of opportunities otherwise
not realised
