CASE-MULTICULTURAL MULTINATIONAL TEAMS SOURCE: Organizational Behavior (2015), b
ID: 330454 • Letter: C
Question
CASE-MULTICULTURAL MULTINATIONAL TEAMS SOURCE: Organizational Behavior (2015), by Robbins & Judge, Prentice Hall. As work has become more global, companies are realizing the benefits of composing teams of employees who not only have different cultural backgrounds, but also who live in different countries. These multicultural, multinational teams are extremely diverse, allowing companies to leverage widely different points of view about business problems One company known for using multicultural, multinational teams is IBM. Although at one time IBM was famous for its written and unwritten rules-such as its no-layoff policy, its focus on individual promotions and achievement, the expectation of lifetime service at the company, and its requirement of suits and white shirts at work, times have changed IBM has clients in 170 countries and now does two-thirds of its business outside the United States. As a result, it has overturned virtually all aspects of its old culture. One relatively new focus is 0? teamwork. To foster appreciation of a variety of cultures and open up emerging markets, IBM sends hundreds of its employees to month-long volunteer project teams in regions of the world where most big companies don't do business. Al Chakra, a software development manager located in Raleigh, North Carolina, was sent to join GreenForest, a funiture manufacturing team in Timisoara, Romania. With Chakra were IBM employees from five other countries. Together, the team helped GreenForest become more computer-savvy to increase its business. In return for the IBM team's assistance, GreenForest was charged nothing. IBM firmly believes these multicultural, multinational teams are good investments, because they help lay the groundwork for uncovering business in emerging economies. IBM is not the only company to use multicultural, multinational teams. Intel Corp, for example, has teams of employees located in the United States, Israel, and Ireland possess certain characteristics And according to a survey conducted by Miriam Erez, a faculty member at the Technion perspective means integrating To manage these types of teams effectively, leaders must These include obvious factors like openness to cultural diversity and cultural intelligence. Israel Institute of Technology, it is better for leaders to have a global rather than a cross- cultural culturally different and geographically different individuals into a single, unified team. Leaders with a global perspective develop a global identity in addition to their local or national identity, while leaders with a cross-cultural perspective do not perceive themselves as belonging to more than one culture. 1 perspective. What's the difference? A global Jrnal(August 4, 200) P B6 S Gups, Mine the Potential ef Mulieulnaral Team HR Magame Aguiis and X Kniges eselits of Training and Developent for ladividuals and Teams Organizabions and Society,al 60. ?0 1 aoon p 451-474 md K Guebak Global Traaung Sought for Leaders of Multeuhral Team Socty for man
Explanation / Answer
Answer 1
There are, without a doubt, several advantages of having such team projects in IBM (or any other firm that operates across international borders or has reached a certain level of operation), even if the hours spent doing so is seemingly long.
Team work gives rise to creativity and learning, as opposed to working in silos, where one sticks to his/her own ideas and tries best to work with the same. When a group comes together, the first obvious phenomena is brainstorming, which is essentially exchange of ideas. With this, team members can combine various ideas and perspectives and come up with intelligent and creative solutions to business problems.
When a team comprises of a heterogeneous group, the strengths of various members come together which has a compounding effect and gives rise to complementary strengths. To give an example, one member of a team might be more strategic in his/her thinking and the other person might be better in executing plans. A combination of the two will be a perfect team of vision and action.
Further, when teams work together, they develop a sense of trust for each other. This is an obvious consequence of the above 2 points. When one is sharing ideas in a conducive environment and is seeking complementary strengths from respective team members, trust automatically builds for each other.
In addition, team projects also enable conflict resolution capabilities and promotes a wider sense of ownership.
Owing to all the above factors, team projects can definitely spell good news for IBM
Answer 2
One would always want to work in such multicultural and multinational projects for the following broad reasons
Answer 3
Cultural shocks and language barriers are indeed serious obstacles for teams that operate across borders and companies have a very important role here to facilitate a smoother functioning of teams.
First and foremost is cultural sensitization of employees. This can be done by various activities such as docu-dramas about other countries, or email interactions of various teams before the actual travel date. A more regular set of activities such as sharing stories of previous teams that have travelled before and how they tackled the same problem.
If a certain team knows that it will be travelling to a certain country, then the team head may possibly have short language crash courses for the members, so that at least the key phrases can be learnt. This could be part of the orientation program itself.
As of the employees themselves, one should be more accommodating and have respect for other people’s cultures and practices.
All said and done, with so much internet and globalization (these days we often hear the term glocalization), people are no longer that insensitive any more. Still, the above measures may go a long way in handling this problems of cultural and language barriers.
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