WEEK 5
READING 1: Managing multicultural teams
READING 2: Leader–Team Congruence in Power Distance Values and Team Effectiveness: The Mediating Role of Procedural Justice Climate
READING 1: Managing multicultural teams
Audience: practitioners
1. WHO were the authors of this article (last names only) and what year was it
published?
- Brett J., Behfar K., Kern M. (2007) / Brett et al. (2007)
2. WHAT is the purpose of this reading and its main conclusions?
- Purpose of the reading:
o Give reasons to why problems and challenges when working in a multicultural
team exist. There are four categories that create barriers to success when
working in a multicultural team: direct versus indirect communication, trouble
with accents and fluency, differing attitudes toward hierarchy and authority,
conflicting norms for decision-making
Accents some countries: may be difficult to understand to people in some
other countries
Understanding Direct and indirect communication is important in
negotiations. Direct communication in Western countries >< Indirect: use
of inferences to talk about the subject
o Give information about four strategies to deal with these challenges: adaptation
(acknowledging cultural gaps openly and working around them), structural
intervention (changing the shape of the team), managerial intervention (setting
norms early or bringing in a higher-level manager), and exit (removing a team
member when other options have failed).
- Conclusions
o The wrong kind of managerial intervention to alleviate the problems associated
with multicultural teams may sideline valuable members or create resistance,
resulting in poor team performance.
o Not only cultural challenges may pose serious negative effects on team success
but they also unmask managerial problems. Managers who intervene early and
set norms: teams and managers who structure social interaction and work to
engage everyone on the team; and teams that can see problems as stemming
from culture, not personality, approach cultural challenges with good humour
and creativity.
3. HOW did the authors reach these conclusions? (i.e., the methods they used)
- Interviewed managers and managers to identify cultural challenges and their used
strategies to deal with cultural challenges
- Analyse and comment on the situations and problems happen in reality
4. WHY do these conclusions matter? (i.e., for our understanding of organisational
behaviour or leadership)
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