This thesis describes cooperation of one specific international team, with emphasis on different cultural backgrounds of individual members. The aim of this work is to analyze mutual communication, conflict resolutions and cooperation of a particular team composed of members of the Slovak, Czech and South African nationality. Then suggest improvements in their cooperation. The aim of the work is also to compare personal cultural preferences of individual members with Hofstede's dimensions characterizing national culture of countries they represent. The practical part consists of questionning specific team of international IT Company, operating in Slovakia, Košice. Used research method was questionnare consisting of closed as well as opened questions. The results of the research are specific recommendations for improving the cooperation of the team.

The main objective of the thesis is to analyze the topic of leading multicultural teams, with a specific attention to the particular example of the company XYZ; and answer the research questions with the gathered data and construct recommendations. The theoretical part provides a comprehensive overview of the concepts of multinational corporations, teams, multicultural teams and leadership. The assumptions derived from the theory serve as a base for the following empirical part, where the theoretical research is completed with a qualitative study. The qualitative study was conducted in cooperation with the company XYZ and professionals working directly in the multicultural teams were interviewed. By combining the findings from both theoretical and empirical part, many of the assumed benefits, especially the increased creativity, of the multicultural teams were confirmed. However, the negative aspects were identified as well, with the more difficult communication above all.

<p>With the increasing trend of globalization, the impact of globalization has lead to a fast changing environment the boundaries for business is diminishing day by day so is the movement of people between different countries and cultures. The requirements of multinational organizations like expansion plans in international market has continuingly increased the need to understand the cultural dimensions of different countries to achieve better results. Therefore the companies are required to understand a national culture’s impact on areas like communication in multicultural teams in different countries which has a high degree of effect on team performance. So our research question revolves around this topic as “How does culture influence communication in multi cultural teams<em>”</em>. This thesis makes an attempt to investigate the influence of national cultures on communication in project teams in China and India by focusing on construction industry based on a number of factors including Hofstede’s (1980) cultural dimensional framework. The researchers intend to explore the cultural factors having major impact on communication in multicultural project teams of both countries. Throughout our research and study, useful lessons on national cultures impact on communication can be drawn for multicultural project team in China and India. It can provide a better insight for the project teams to have concern for and understand why people from different countries and cultures react or respond to various situations in a different manner, giving high emphasis to communication process.</p><p>To support our thesis a total of 12 semi-structured interviews were conducted with managers in different companies from construction sector. An empirical qualitative research using semi-structured interviews was conducted from a total of 12 project team members from multinational companies in China and India based on their experiences on cultural influence on team communication when working in project teams. The research revealed that there are significant differences and similarities in communication styles of Chinese and Indian teams, and the differences are mostly attributed to have strong links with cultural aspects. Specially with increasing economical changes the traditional patterns of behavior in communication are changing with time. The results also addressed number of similarities; especially in both the countries, culture continues to dominate most aspects of communication. The major implication is that the knowledge of the cultural differences and similarities would facilitate better team performance. Therefore, by keeping in mind the importance as well as the impact of various national cultures and presenting each member with a better understanding and knowledge about social background of the team mates within the multicultural teams, arguments and conflicts arise due to misconception and pre-judgment can be reduced. Hence it will increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the teams working in multicultural environment.</p>

<p>Most multicultural teams are not as successful as expected. Germany and Sweden are close trade partners and one form of cooperation are German-Swedish project teams. In this thesis the reader will get answers to the following questions: What are the problems and benefits among German-Swedish project team members due to cultural differences and in which way can problems be coped with and benefits be enhanced. This thesis does not focus on virtual teams, the leadership of multicultural teams and the formation of German-Swedish project teams.</p><p>The main components of the theoretical framework are cultural models which serve as basis for our analysis are Hofstede’s five dimensional model, Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner’s model and Hall’s model. For our research we interviewed eight members of German-Swedish project teams. We discovered problems among German-Swedish project team members deriving from differences in the communication styles, in the focus on cooperation versus task and in dealing with rules. Beneficial in the German-Swedish collaborations is that the cultures complement each other in focusing on the facts versus broadening the subject and in the focus on team spirit versus goal achievement. Another beneficial characteristic is the similarity of the German and Swedish culture.</p><p>After analysing the problems and benefits due to cultural differences in German-Swedish project teams, we present our concept to reduce the problems in German-Swedish project teams. The concept consists of steps which build up on one another and therefore represent an overall concept which can serve as a basis and inspiration for enhancing the collaboration in German-Swedish project teams. Our concept includes the steps: intercultural training, a mentor system in the team, internal advisors in the company and a cultural evaluation.</p>

Most multicultural teams are not as successful as expected. Germany and Sweden are close trade partners and one form of cooperation are German-Swedish project teams. In this thesis the reader will get answers to the following questions: What are the problems and benefits among German-Swedish project team members due to cultural differences and in which way can problems be coped with and benefits be enhanced. This thesis does not focus on virtual teams, the leadership of multicultural teams and the formation of German-Swedish project teams. The main components of the theoretical framework are cultural models which serve as basis for our analysis are Hofstede’s five dimensional model, Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner’s model and Hall’s model. For our research we interviewed eight members of German-Swedish project teams. We discovered problems among German-Swedish project team members deriving from differences in the communication styles, in the focus on cooperation versus task and in dealing with rules. Beneficial in the German-Swedish collaborations is that the cultures complement each other in focusing on the facts versus broadening the subject and in the focus on team spirit versus goal achievement. Another beneficial characteristic is the similarity of the German and Swedish culture. After analysing the problems and benefits due to cultural differences in German-Swedish project teams, we present our concept to reduce the problems in German-Swedish project teams. The concept consists of steps which build up on one another and therefore represent an overall concept which can serve as a basis and inspiration for enhancing the collaboration in German-Swedish project teams. Our concept includes the steps: intercultural training, a mentor system in the team, internal advisors in the company and a cultural evaluation.

With the increasing trend of globalization, the impact of globalization has lead to a fast changing environment the boundaries for business is diminishing day by day so is the movement of people between different countries and cultures. The requirements of multinational organizations like expansion plans in international market has continuingly increased the need to understand the cultural dimensions of different countries to achieve better results. Therefore the companies are required to understand a national culture’s impact on areas like communication in multicultural teams in different countries which has a high degree of effect on team performance. So our research question revolves around this topic as “How does culture influence communication in multi cultural teams”. This thesis makes an attempt to investigate the influence of national cultures on communication in project teams in China and India by focusing on construction industry based on a number of factors including Hofstede’s (1980) cultural dimensional framework. The researchers intend to explore the cultural factors having major impact on communication in multicultural project teams of both countries. Throughout our research and study, useful lessons on national cultures impact on communication can be drawn for multicultural project team in China and India. It can provide a better insight for the project teams to have concern for and understand why people from different countries and cultures react or respond to various situations in a different manner, giving high emphasis to communication process. To support our thesis a total of 12 semi-structured interviews were conducted with managers in different companies from construction sector. An empirical qualitative research using semi-structured interviews was conducted from a total of 12 project team members from multinational companies in China and India based on their experiences on cultural influence on team communication when working in project teams. The research revealed that there are significant differences and similarities in communication styles of Chinese and Indian teams, and the differences are mostly attributed to have strong links with cultural aspects. Specially with increasing economical changes the traditional patterns of behavior in communication are changing with time. The results also addressed number of similarities; especially in both the countries, culture continues to dominate most aspects of communication. The major implication is that the knowledge of the cultural differences and similarities would facilitate better team performance. Therefore, by keeping in mind the importance as well as the impact of various national cultures and presenting each member with a better understanding and knowledge about social background of the team mates within the multicultural teams, arguments and conflicts arise due to misconception and pre-judgment can be reduced. Hence it will increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the teams working in multicultural environment.

Ongoing globalization in business world has led to increase diversity of workforce.Organizations are relying more and more on people coming from all over the world withdifferent backgrounds, nationalities, culture, race etc. Operating in such multiculturalenvironment has forced MNCs to recognize the importance of retaining highly qualified leadersto manage multicultural employees and more specifically to pay attention on the differentchallenges that they might face. In such multicultural environment, it’s important that managershave the required competencies to manage people from culturally diverse background.The purpose of this study is to investigate in detail the most suitable leadership styles toovercome the challenges of multicultural project teams so that organizations can gaincompetitive advantage over others. To find the most suitable leadership styles, firstly weinvestigated based on literature the most important challenges and issues that both projectmanagers and multicultural teams face. Secondly, we defined the project managers who areable to identify and overcome the challenges of multicultural teams. Thirdly, we analysed theleadership style and competencies of project managers who are aware of the differentchallenges of MCT to find out the most suitable and common leadership style in the studiedindustry. The research is a qualitative single case study focusing on one construction MNCnamely ‘Skanska’ in Sweden.In this study, we found three common leadership styles presented among project managersnamely; mix of servant plus transformational leadership, mix of transformational andtransactional leadership, and lastly transformational leadership style. Findings from the studyshow that mix of servant and transactional leadership is the most suitable leadership style formanaging multicultural project teams in construction industry, while it seems also thattransformational leadership style is being the most common style as every project leaderpossess some traits of it.

Biculturals are increasingly recognized as an important segment of managers, yet U.S.-based global organizations’ limited knowledge and recognition of this group’s distinctive experiences and related implications within their work environment limit the value placed on bicultural managers’ leadership of multicultural teams and the use of their competencies and skills to improve the effectiveness of multicultural teams. Notwithstanding, traditional leadership models are lacking in diversity and unanswered questions remain regarding the role of multiculturalism in global leadership and team effectiveness. The purpose of this qualitative exploratory multiple case study was to gain deeper understanding of the management experiences of biculturals in U.S.-based global organizations and the implications of their bicultural competencies and skills in leading multicultural teams. This study was framed by 3 concepts: bicultural competence, boundary spanning by bicultural managers, and leadership emergence in multicultural teams. Data were collected from semistructured interviews with 7 participants, reflective field notes, and archival data. Identifiable themes emerged through thematic analysis of the textual data and cross-case synthesis analysis. Five conceptual categories that enclosed a total of 16 themes were identified. The conceptual categories are (a) bicultural competence, (b) boundary spanning, (c) cultural intelligence, (d) global identity, and (e) leading multicultural teams. Findings may drive social change by challenging the status quo in existing formal work structures and promoting diversity in the workplace creating emerging avenues for business growth and building bridges of communication between the business world and society.

In this era of globalization and internationalization of business, effective interpersonal communication and intercultural relationship among coworkers still poses challenges and differences in an organization. This thesis aims to research and analyse challenges of interpersonal communication and intercultural differences in a multicultural organization and the way it can be solved using a qualitative method and an inductive approach on a single case study of a Swedish based multicultural company, Lyreco. The empirical data consist of ten semi- structured interview with addition of secondary data. Former research has focused on differences of individual’s ways of communication based on their cultural background. On a comprehensive analysis and the usage of existing theories, the findings of this research pinpointed ineffective usage of communication context as one of the challenges of curtailing interpersonal communication in a multicultural organization. Cultural differences like individualism, ethnocentrism, and ambient cultural disharmony are identified as challenges experienced in a multicultural organization. But with the intervention of organizational culture it can be managed. Individual team member’s attitude are curtailed under the rules of the organization. From findings, it is established that to abridge the friction within multicultural teams, the role of an organization is very important. There is need to institute structural intervention which encourages team members to adapt to each other’s culture by acknowledging cultural gaps and working around the differences.

The goal of the master thesis is to determine possibilities of improving of management of multicultural teams in the Service Desk department in DHL Information Services (Europe) s. r. o. The teoretical part of the thesis involves concepts of team, team development, team management practices and team communication. The practical part of the thesis focuses on verification of hypotheses through structured interviews with manager of multicultural teams in the department of Service Desk and with particular team leaders.