Definition

Multicultural teams are task-oriented

groups consisting of people of different
national cultures
ADVANTAGES
 Companies expanding globally to tap the
potential of foreign markets use multicultural
teams.

 They promise flexibility, responsiveness and

improved resource utilization to meet the
dynamic demands of a global business
environment
 There is a variety of perspectives, skills
and personal attributes

 Ethnically diverse groups generate more

ideas of higher quality in brainstorming
tasks .
 Culturally diverse teams outperform
homogeneous teams at identifying
problems and generating solutions
(Watson et al., 1993).
 By employing multicultural teams,
companies make significant gains in
productivity (Townsend et al., 1998).
 For example, culturally diverse teams of a
multi-branch financial services organization
report higher levels of financial profitability than
their culturally homogeneous counterparts
 Creative approaches to the problems and
challenges faced by corporate teams
(Marquardt and Horvath, 2001).
 Interaction among multicultural team
members stimulates the formation of an
emergent team culture. Thus they develop
and rely on a team culture of simplified
rules, performance expectations
and member perceptions.
 Cohesive teams react faster to changes
and challenges, are more flexible, and
therefore are more efficient (Elron, 1997).
 The communication skills of individual
team members help to establish rapport
within the team and to bind team
members into one cohesive and high
performing unit.
Challenges in cross-
cultural teams
 Vulnerable to interaction problems that may
affect team cohesion.

 Members of multicultural teams have different

perceptions of the environment, motives and
intentions of behaviors, communication norms,
stereotyping, ethnocentrism, and prejudices.
The consequences of such differences are
manifested in lower team performance due to
impeded social cohesion (Shaw, 1981).
 Studies of team cohesion and team
performance report positive correlation
between these two factors
 Managing cultural diversity, differences and
conflicts;

 Handling geographic distances and dispersion

of team members;

 Dealing with coordination and control issues;

 Maintaining communication richness;

 Developing and maintaining team

cohesiveness
 Managers from different cultures are likely
to interpret and respond differently to the
same strategic issues or team tasks
because they have distinct perceptions of
environmental opportunities and threats
and internal strengths and weaknesses
(Schneider and DeMeyer, 1991).
 Cross cultural communication
competence is thus a vital component
of managers’ ability to address the
common challenges faced by
multicultural teams.