Exam 2 - Multicultural teams, Global organizations, Negotiation, and Ethics & Corruption Flashcards
The definition of multicultural teams
Teamwork pre-supposes the creation of common values and ideas, a delicate process in multicultural teams and organizations.
‘Teamwork’ implies a synergy from working together which increases the performance of the work being done
Cultural differences can mean different expectations about:
- The task: the purpose, how to operate, how to structure the task and team roles
- The process: the team building, communication, participation, conflict management and team evaluation
Multicultural teams: How to create a sense of purpose for the team and what are the influences?
Mission: how explicit?
Goals and objectives: can they be measured?
How to decide the team members?
* Political power, people you like to work with, specific knowledge?
* Selecting team have to make sense for the cultures
What are the priorities? Money, schedule, quality?
Is the purpose to share information or make decisions?
Cultural influences: Task versus relationship Being versus doing Hierarchy Individual versus collective High versus low context Monochronic(limited time frame) versus polychromic(the purpose of the team can be revisited any time) - Universal versus particular
Multicultural teams: How to structure the task for the team and what are the influences?
Teammeetings: Talking about what we have done between the two meetings? In Hungary: we work together while having the meeting.
Agenda: how structured?
- Important in Germany to have a clear agenda –> reduce uncertainty
- France: do several discussions at once - interrelated. Here American would be frustrated because no decisions are made.
Rules: how explicit? What accomplished: by whom? Time and deadlines? Dividing work: re-integrating work Work together: work apart?
Cultural influences:
Uncertainty avoidance
Monochronic (topics are expected to be dealt with systematic once at a time) / polychromic (no calls on wait, people come and go to make calls when in a meeting)
High versus low context (Americans and German managers spell out ALL details also the obvious ones.
Multicultural teams: How to assign roles and responsibilities and what are the influences?
Who does what?
*Individualistic: “go do it alone” and then one person needs to be responsible for pulling it together. Difficulty spending time on consensus. The same counts for cultures with “control over the environment” (internal).
- Collectivistic: expect to do the work together. Pulling it all together.
- Rewarding individual is seen as destroy of harmony of working relationships.
Who is responsible?
Assign a leader?
Leadership criteria: competence, interpersonal, position?
*Germany: technical competences to have credibility
*France or Italy: Political influence in the organisation
*American: good interpersonal skills, facilitator and no narrow skills(power or task-specific)
Leadership role: make or facilitate decisions? Obtain resources?
- Nordic managers: take turn in the chair and facilitate disitions.
- If Hierarchy is important: the leader is the leader and makes decisions.
Who attends meetings & when?
Cultural influences: Individual versus collective Power and status Uncertainty and control Task versus relationship
Multicultural teams: How to reach decisions and what are the influences?
How? Vote, consensus, compromise
Who? Leader or team?
Can one speck up and disagree?
When is a decision a decision? Written? spoken? hand shake?
Is compromise a “fair solution” to the British, Americans, or the French?
*French: Why go for a compromise if the perfect solution can be found?
Cultural influences:
Individual versus collective
High versus low context
Hierarchy
Multicultural teams: How to build a team and what are the influences?
How to develop trust?
- Icelanders trust until proven wrong –> small society and homogeneous.
- US people trust until proven wrong – creates it by being friendly
- German: building trust by showing knowledge
Time for social activities?
In high context and polychronic cultures not meeting deadlines are not critical.
Where trust is low, misunderstandings are more frequent.
Cultural influences: Task versus relationship Monochronic /polychronic High versus low context Diffuse versus specific
Multicultural teams: How to Choose how to communicate and what are the influences?
Which language? Who decides?
- Can create “winners and losers”
- Make certain rules so everybody can have a voice no matter their language level. A more low-context approach because it cannot be assumed that people can read between the lines.
Imbalance in levels of fluency?
Communication technology?
*The first meeting need to be face to face to build mutual trust and confidence.
*Emails tend to be more direct (low-context).
*The team need to select the necessary technologies.
What is an effective presentation?
Cultural influences: Power distance : Ability levels in language can have impact on the hierarchy level. Individual versus collective High versus low context Monochronic / polychronic
Multicultural teams: How to elicit participation and what are the influences?
Ensure participation of all? Some given more credibility? Some members’ input ignored? Who listens to whom? Who interrupts whom?
Participating – how to participate. In US people reafirm what others says because it is participating, but in Iceland it is not participating meaningful if you just say what others already said
Cultural influences:
Power distance
Individual /collective
Masculinity
Multicultural teams: How to resolve conflicts and what are the influences?
How is conflict managed? Avoided, confronted? Who accommodates whom? Is collaboration sought? Do people compromise? Negotiation as win/lose or win/win?
Conflict solving – negotiate something in an individualistic culture - everybody wants a slide of the pie.
Collectivistic: more likely to ask ”what are you going to use it for” (the lemon example) need the thing for different things. Not necessary the same thing other want that you want.
Cultural influences: Task versus relationship Power Individual versus collective Universal versus particular
Multicultural teams: How to evaluate performance and what are the influences?
How and when to evaluate performance?
Evaluation as two-way process?
How is feedback given?
Can the team give feedback to the leader?
Cultural influences:
High versus low context - Should direct feedback be given?
Power distance - Hierarchy – cannot argue against a decision
Individual versus collective
Name and describe the four strategies to overcome the challenges of Managing multicultural teams.
Challenges in general : Direct – Indirect communication Accents and fluency Attitudes toward hierarchy & authority Norms for decision making
Adaption:
- Problems: Conflict arises from decision making differences. - Misunderstanding or stonewalling arises from communication differences
- How to overcome the differences: Have to be aware of our own culture
- Conditions: Team members can attribute a challenge to culture rather than personality. - Higher-level managers are not available or the team would be embarrassed to involve them
Structural invention:
- Problems: The team is affected by emotional tensions relating to fluency issues or prejudice. -Team members are inhibited by perceived status differences among teammates
- Conditions: The team can be subdivided to mix cultures or expertise. - Tasks can be subdivided
- Considerations: If team members aren’t carefully distributed, subgroups can strengthen preexisting differences. - Subgroup solutions have to fit back together
Managerial intervention
- Problems: Violations of hierarchy have resulted in loss of face. - An absence of ground rules is causing conflict
- Conditions: The problem has produced a high level of emotion. - The team has reached a stalemate. - A higher-level manager is able and willing to intervene
- Considerations: The team becomes overly dependent on the manager. - Team members may be sidelined or resistant
Exit:
- Problems: A team member cannot adjust to the challenge at hand and has become unable to contribute to the project
- Conditions: The team is permanent rather than temporary. - Emotions are beyond the point of intervention. - Too much face has been lost
- Considerations: Talent and training costs are lost. A person that is problematic. Change the team or exit the person? We cannot solve all cultural problems! – Who have the power to do it? Do the person have some important skills the team needs?
Describe the MBI model
MAP: Understand the differences
- Recognize and describe different perspectives
- Dimensions of cultural values
- Own and others’ dispositions
- Map different cultures in the team. What does people like and why.
BRIDGE: Communicate across the differences
- Approach with motivation and confidence
- Decentre without blame
- Recentre to commonalities
INTEGRATE: Manage the differences
- Encourage participation
- Resolve conflicts
- Build on each others’ ideas
- Effective use of the differences
It takes a lot of work, but can avoid problems and gain from the diversity. More diverse solutions
What can the negotiation goal be in global organisations?
A signed contract
- 74 pc. of Spanish respondents agree
- 33 pc of Indian agree
A relationship between the two parties.
- Although the written contract is a sign of relationship
- Asians spend more time on this first part to build the relationship (North Americans wants to rush through it to get the signed contract)
- Important to focus on the two organisations ability to work together on a long term
Describe the two sides of negotiation attitude
Concern the attitude that negotiators have when approaching a deal making.
Win-lose
*One side have to lose - a struggle.
*Confrontational
*
Win-Win
*Both can gain from the negotiation
*Collaborative, problem-solving process
* 100 pc. of Japanese respondents agree
What is personal style in negotiation? And the two different approaches?
The way a negotiator talks to others, using titles, dresses, speaks, and interact.
Formal
- Germans have a formal style
- Do not asks about private and family life, no personal anecdotes, always using titles.
- For a Japanese use of first names are disrespectful in first meetings.
Informal
*Try do build a friendly relationship with the other team, uses first names, takes off jacket .
Best to start with formal, and then switch to informal if the situation warrants.
