1. A STUDY ON MULTICULTURAL TEAM
AND THE CULTURAL DIVERSITY IN
MULTI-NATIONAL COMPANIES
M.Jayanthi1 and Dr.KVR.Rajandran2
2. Introduction
• Multicultural teams are an essential part of
today’s global business environment.
• It is clear that multiculturalism have huge
effect on many aspects of our daily life
3. Introduction
• The food we eat
• Social lives we live
• The buildings around us
• The people we associate with
• The corporate offices run around us
• Our own out look on the world
• Note: Nepalyees @Norway & Immigrant Labors
@ Germany
4. Reasons for Multicultural environment
• International Corporate business Growth
• Global Economic Changes and challenges
• Cross boundary transactions
• Complex business environment
5. Adaptation
Environmental adaptation became more crucial
for the business success, but
• Adaptation is driven by cultural diversity
(Salas, Goodwin and Barke, 2009)
• Adapting to cultural diversity is a demanding
process, since culture is still much slower to
change. (C.Thomas & Inkson, 2004)
6. The concept of culture
• Culture is generally defined as a pattern of deep level
values and assumptions concerning societal
functioning, which is shared by an interacting group of
people. (Adler, 2002).
• Cultural values are learned very early in life as people
are socialized into their respective environments with
in particular societies and are very difficult to relearn
or change. (Hofstede, 2001)
• Note : 164 Definitions
7. Cultural Diversity
• Cultural diversity refers to the representation
of people within a social system “the group
which collectively share certain norms, values
or traditions that are different from those of
other groups” (Cox, 1993).
• Often the term cultural diversity is applied to
ethnic or national diversity in work groups as
well (Watson, 1993).
8. Review of Literature
• The basic theoretical assumption of diversity
research asserts that diversity with respect to
the group composition influences group
processes and that these processes in turn
affect group performance (Williams, 1998).
• Diversity research has established that
diversity offers both a great opportunity for
companies as well as major challenges (Adler,
2002).
9. Review of Literature
• Diverse work groups experience strong
conflicts (Pelled, 1999), communication
between group members becomes more
difficult (Caldwell, 1992), the willingness to
cooperate with fellow group members
diminishes (Thomas, 1999) and group
cohesion decreases (Harrison, 2002). All these
process losses often result in higher turnover
and absenteeism rates (O’Reilly, 1989) and
lower the work satisfaction (Tsai, 1992).
10. Methodology
• Sample size: 50
• Random sampling method
• Multicultural team from countries includes India,
Australia, Singapore, USA, Saudi Arabia Canada
and UAE
• Data Collection through: E- Mail
• Data analysis done using: Multiple Response
Analysis (SPSS) and Percentage Analysis
Technique
11. Data Analysis
Influences of cultural diversity in multicultural team
The benefits of a multicultural team
Problems in multicultural team
Stage at which problem arises
Need of cross cultural training
Key skills required for a multicultural team
12. Influences of Cultural diversity
Have
Influence
(74%)
No
Influence
(26%)
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40
13. Influences of Cultural diversity
• This finding of the research was inline with the
previous study that “culture affects our
perception”, “culture affects our verbal and
nonverbal language”, “and “The culture affects
our identity” (Cooper, Thomas and Simonds,
2007).
14. Benefits of Multicultural Team
35
30
25
15
10
5
0
20
Different skills
Better capabilities
Creativity
Benefits of multicultural team
No of Respondents
34
22
22
15. Benefits of Multicultural Team
• Lazear (1998, 1999) asserts that a diverse
team can generate productivity gains if three
factors are present.
• First, team members must have different
skills, ability, or information.
16. Benefits of Multicultural Team
• Second, the different skills, ability, or
information of team members must be
relevant to one another.
• Third, communication is necessary for team
members to perform the relevant joint tasks
and engage in knowledge transfer to enhance
productivity.
17. Causes of problems in a Multicultural
Team
29
Problems in multicultural team
32
35
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
Miscommunication Unawareness of culture Attitudinal and perception issues
No of Respondents
29
32
35
18. Causes of problems in a Multicultural
Team
• This finding is inline with previous literature
that a major challenge for multicultural
management is the different cultural beliefs,
practices and traditions that are embraced by
various segments of employees (Edwer,
2010).
19. Causes of problems in a Multicultural
Team
• A lack of culturally appropriate
communication can create animosity and
division between employees, leading to
internal challenges that will hinder overall
performance (Devine, 2007).
20. Stages of project sensitive to problem
Stage of project sensitive to problem
70%
30%
Beginning Middle
21. Stages of project sensitive to problem
• “The Beginning” of the project is accordance
with the framework of Tuckman’s model
(1965). From Tuckman’s model it is apparent
that all stages have some challenges for
teams, but especially in the storming stage.
22. Need of Cross Culture training
62%
38%
Need of cross culture training
YES NO
23. Need of Cross Culture training
• The finding is in line with Mendenhall Model.
• Training knowledge of corporate etiquette can
improve the skills of future team members
and prepare them for the diverse issues in
multicultural team (Mendenhall Model, 1987).
24. Key skills required
• better communication capabilities
• respect, value and tolerance towards other’s
culture
• open-mindedness to accept other’s culture and
views
• flexibility to accept the changes taken place
• continuous learning attitude
• culture awareness
• positive approach towards the problems
25. Key skills required
• A: Better communication capabilities
• B: Learning attitude
• C: Respect and acceptance for others culture
• D: Open mindedness
• E: Flexibility
Mixture of these skills in correct proportion
will form Effective Multicultural work group
which indeed required.
27. Conclusion
• Cultural diversity has impact in multicultural team
work.
• Diversity offers both opportunity and challenges.
• The beginning stage of the project is more
sensitive to the problems.
• A multicultural group which has better qualities
will be able to establish a good working
atmosphere
• Proper cross cultural training is required.
28. Thank you
My Sincere Thanks to
• PMU, Vallam, Tanjore.
• Dr.KVR.Rajandran, HOD, Dept of Management.
• Conference Organizers and Team members.
