Multicultural teams have become very common in recent years. With cross-border mobility becoming easier, the number of people moving from one country to another has increased significantly. This has also led to more people of different cultural and ethnic backgrounds marrying each other. Your children could be born and raised in different countries and have hybrid cultural identities. Globalization and advances in communication and transportation technology have lowered trade barriers and increased interaction between people.
Is global homogeneity a viable and desirable vision? Philosophically this would be very questionable. This would be immediately equated with the suppression of differences and diversity, which are inalienable human rights. It can be argued that it would destroy cultures and diminish creativity. There are enough cases in human history, for example, the fate of Native Americans or the actions of the conqueror in South America, where one culture has forcibly exterminated other cultures. Then there are many other examples where aspects of cultures have been mixed through interaction, for example, India and the United States. Today, although genocides occur before our eyes, for example, in the Balkans or in some parts of Africa, the predominant pattern of cultures influencing others is mutual interaction, where there is ample room to preserve one’s own cultural identity. . According to the 2000 census, “minorities “ they have become the majority population in six of the eight largest metropolitan areas in the United States. Thus, living together and managing diversity has become the central theme of this century.
In fact, many studies have shown that diversity in human capital actually leads to greater creativity and efficiency in many cases. Studies have also shown that the lack of successful integration of diverse workforces has negative implications for organizational performance. This is expressed more publicly in legal actions, such as the recent discrimination lawsuits against multinational corporations such as Coca-Cola, Wal-Mart, Xerox.
The skills needed to manage with people of diverse backgrounds at work or outside the workplace can be very different because in the workplace we are in our work roles and there are many external limitations to our behavior. Many people spend more time awake with their colleagues than with their spouse and children. Therefore, any problems that arise in this area will definitely spill over into privacy.
By carefully examining the factors that affect the leadership or management of multicultural teams, we can identify five factors that operate at the team level:
- National culture
- Organization’s corporate culture
- Nature of industry or functional culture (coal mine, marketing, accounting)
- Team development stage
- Personal attributes
National culture – There are extensive theories and much research on how national cultures affect team behavior. Ger Hofstede’s Consequences of culture (1980) and Cultures and Organizations (1991) are two examples. National culture has many dimensions such as time orientation, communication style, personal space, competitiveness and worldview. In general, here we are also dealing with stereotypes and cultural prejudices. Regional and personal life experience or character traits can override these attributed “national” cultural traits. In real life, this means that a member of the Italian team may be a shy and quiet person, or that a German may be hopeless with schedules.
Corporate culture – Corporate culture is closely related to functional culture and is the result of a historical process where the founder and successive leaders have left their mark. A large multinational organization will surely have a more structured, hierarchical and bureaucratic approach to managing its affairs, whereas an internet web design company with 5 young creative artists would be a completely different environment.
Nature of the industry – Coal miners, web designers and international bankers seem to come from different worlds. Dress, language, etiquette, unwritten codes of conduct, accepted practices, and skills required on the job vary greatly across different industries. It is vitally important that the industry, organization or environment allows team members to show a sense of pride in their own professional identity.
Team Development Internship – If the team was recently formed and has no background or experience, everyone should learn the rules of the game. If the team has a history of efficient performance, new entrants can rely on established practice and older members to teach them the required skills. The developmental stage of the team member also plays a big role here. If the team is in the formation stage, the rules of the game are still being negotiated and people are learning their own roles. Tea ‘veteranThe team member has carved out a secure role for himself while the newcomer has to fight.
Personal attributes – Last but not least, there are all the other factors such as personality, competency profile, individual’s own life experience, reward expectations, recognition and satisfaction of teamwork, as well as history previous teamwork.
The first three factors are static factors, which means that their characteristics cannot be easily changed by individual actions. Team members or even the entire team cannot change the national culture. Individuals, teams, and organizations must learn to adapt to them. In fact, the efficiency of the team is directly related to how well this adaptation has been achieved. But intervention can greatly affect the last two factors of Stages of Team Development and Personal Attributes. A team can accelerate its progress from the training stage to the maturity stage and an individual can change personal attributes by acquiring new competencies.
Superior sustainable team performance can be achieved only if team members learn to take into account the dimensions of the organizational culture and those of the national culture such as time orientation, communication style, personal space, competitiveness and the worldview. Only when they have been successfully adapted to their work practices to reflect the underlying realities of team members can teams truly see the added value that multicultural teams bring.