Multicultural teams are capable of producing creative and high quality solutions, but are also prone to conflict (Stahl, Maznevski, Voigt, & Johnson, 2010). Thus, it is important to understand the conditions which encourage the development of strong identity in multicultural teams. Third culture, a team’s shared schema of task knowledge, team knowledge, and team motivational values (Adair, Tinsley, & Taylor, 2006), is a construct which may help fill this gap in knowledge. Two field studies were conducted (1) to examine whether participant expectations of productivity, satisfaction, and psychological safety differed among four types of third culture, and (2) to examine how individual differences in cognitive-motivation, ideology, national culture, and multicultural team experience are related to expectations of productivity, satisfaction, and psychological safety among four types of third culture. In general, results suggest that people expect more creativity and satisfaction in teams with Fusion and Mosaic third cultures, as well as less psychological safety. Future research directions are discussed.

Multicultural teams are capable of producing creative and high quality solutions, but are also prone to conflict (Stahl, Maznevski, Voigt, & Johnson, 2010). Thus, it is important to understand the conditions which encourage the development of strong identity in multicultural teams. Third culture, a team’s shared schema of task knowledge, team knowledge, and team motivational values (Adair, Tinsley, & Taylor, 2006), is a construct which may help fill this gap in knowledge. Two field studies were conducted (1) to examine whether participant expectations of productivity, satisfaction, and psychological safety differed among four types of third culture, and (2) to examine how individual differences in cognitive-motivation, ideology, national culture, and multicultural team experience are related to expectations of productivity, satisfaction, and psychological safety among four types of third culture. In general, results suggest that people expect more creativity and satisfaction in teams with Fusion and Mosaic third cultures, as well as less psychological safety. Future research directions are discussed.

When a multicultural team is formed of say six individuals of different cultural backgrounds, there will be potential conflicts and greater varieties. However, there will be a ¡§normal¡¨ curve forms the range and permissible boundaries of a team. In concept, this normal distribution is the ¡§calm¡¨ state when the team is not active (norms). The potential is the range of team members¡¦ abilities/differences (divergences). To be able to reach the potential and perform is part of the team¡¦s goal (convergences & attributions). But to expect something more than expected is cultural synergy (break the original boundaries). The factors that will be considered as diverging forces are the differences that are born (already exists) when the team is formed. In order to model these cultural factors and estimate these cultural differences, Hofstede cultural dimensions are used. The factors that will be considered as converging forces are what each individual believe in such as perspective taking and self-leadership. These values are projected from the assessments of team individuals. The factors that will be considered as supporting forces (attribution factors) are how each member interacts with one another during the process. These are each individual behavior and personality. Therefore, from the perspective of divergence and convergence to see how cultural differences influence the teams and talk about their possible behaviors and reasons behind them is a conceptual way to look at the team. Based on the concept described above, the analysis of these different forces on multicultural teams is conducted. Using these factors, the paper explains/examines: l Cultural and individual values differences l Wish to base on the findings from the research to make helpful inferences on the learning and performance of multicultural teams. l Cultural divergent factors l Individual convergent factors l Individual attribution factors l Cultural synergy

This study aims at exploring the ways project managers can communicate within a multicultural team in an IT project. The purpose is to make the project process understandable and to ensure that the instructions are perceived by everyone in the same way, regardless of their cultural differences. A qualitative study has been conducted to gain more insights from both IT project managers and team members working in Finland, France, Italy, Uganda, and the USA. The empirical findings allowed the authors to gather enough information to present a set of skills that will help project managers develop their communication abilities when working with multicultural teams in IT projects. The majority of competencies found to be useful are soft skills related to interpersonal communication and their implications for team dynamics: empathy, clarity of thought, respect and responsibility, cultural awareness, and multicultural leadership. The findings contribute to both confirming existing theories and providing new information that could be implemented in academic articles, especially concerning skills useful to project managers.

During the last years, due to the globalization markets become more and more involved in an international level. Cultural diversity in the workplace is something common nowadays, it involves countless benefits for the companies and the other professional contexts. While simultaneously, it involves conflicts and misunderstandings therefore it is more and more required to get people able to deal with different cultures. The main purpose of our Thesis is to study the process through which an individual becomes able to deal and work with different cultures. In other words, we pretend to discover how someone can become culturally intelligent. This thesis has been conducted using the Grounded Theory method. By analyzing the data we have collected throughout eight interviews from different culturally intelligent people and the data we have obtained by reading literature, we came with the idea that the process for becoming culturally intelligent is composed by three elements: the first one is related with the individual, the second one is related with the interaction of the individual within a multicultural group and the third one is related with the benefits and disadvantages that emerged while someone is working with different cultures.

A internacionalização das empresas brasileiras traz uma nova realidade: a necessidade de implementação de projetos globais. Estes trazem, em seu bojo, o desafio do gerenciamento de equipes multiculturais. Sendo um fenômeno recente, com pouco desenvolvimento teórico, o presente estudo buscou entender as relações entre características culturais e desempenho de equipes de projetos globais em multinacionais brasileiras, em contextos de alta e baixa distância cultural. Uma vez identificadas estas relações, tratou-se de entendê-las à luz do processo de gerenciamento de equipes. Para levar avante esta discussão, empreendeu-se um estudo de campo com enfoque tanto quantitativo quanto qualitativo junto a 34 projetos globais de multinacionais brasileiras, em que participaram pessoas oriundas de 22 países. Os resultados indicam que características culturais estão, sim, associadas ao desempenho da equipe, seja técnico ou humano, e que essa associação tem diferentes intensidades a depender do contexto. A proximidade hierárquica e o coletivismo foram mais importantes em contextos de baixa distância, enquanto que a feminilidade e a propensão ao risco foram mais importantes em contexto de alta distância cultural. Em que pesem estes resultados, verificou-se que há, entre os projetos pesquisados, pouca preocupação concreta com a questão da multiculturalidade e pouco incentivo ao desenvolvimento intercultural dos membros da equipe, o que acaba prejudicando a construção de um mindset global, importante para as empresas multinacionais brasileiras atuarem com sucesso no exterior. Ao final do estudo, foram propostas recomendações para que as empresas brasileiras comecem a gerenciar suas equipes globais de forma a evitar os problemas que a multiculturalidade pode trazer, que vão desde conflitos entre pessoas até o fracasso do projeto. / The internationalization of Brazilian companies brings a new reality: the need for implementation of global projects. These, in turn, carry in their essence the challenge of managing multicultural teams. Being a recent phenomenon, with little theoretical development, this study sought to understand the relationships between cultural features and performance of project teams in global projects of Brazilian multinationals, in contexts of high and low cultural distance. Once these relations were identified, we tried to understand them in light of the teams management process. To carry out this discussion, we undertook a field study, with both quantitative and qualitative focus, of 34 global projects of Brazilian multinationals, in which people from 22 countries took part. The results indicate that cultural traits are associated to team performance, whether technical or human, and this association has different intensities depending on the context. At the end of the study, recommendations were proposed for Brazilian companies to start managing their global teams so as to avoid the problems that multiculturalism can bring, which range from conflicts between people until the complete failure of the project.

A internacionalização das empresas brasileiras traz uma nova realidade: a necessidade de implementação de projetos globais. Estes trazem, em seu bojo, o desafio do gerenciamento de equipes multiculturais. Sendo um fenômeno recente, com pouco desenvolvimento teórico, o presente estudo buscou entender as relações entre características culturais e desempenho de equipes de projetos globais em multinacionais brasileiras, em contextos de alta e baixa distância cultural. Uma vez identificadas estas relações, tratou-se de entendê-las à luz do processo de gerenciamento de equipes. Para levar avante esta discussão, empreendeu-se um estudo de campo com enfoque tanto quantitativo quanto qualitativo junto a 34 projetos globais de multinacionais brasileiras, em que participaram pessoas oriundas de 22 países. Os resultados indicam que características culturais estão, sim, associadas ao desempenho da equipe, seja técnico ou humano, e que essa associação tem diferentes intensidades a depender do contexto. A proximidade hierárquica e o coletivismo foram mais importantes em contextos de baixa distância, enquanto que a feminilidade e a propensão ao risco foram mais importantes em contexto de alta distância cultural. Em que pesem estes resultados, verificou-se que há, entre os projetos pesquisados, pouca preocupação concreta com a questão da multiculturalidade e pouco incentivo ao desenvolvimento intercultural dos membros da equipe, o que acaba prejudicando a construção de um mindset global, importante para as empresas multinacionais brasileiras atuarem com sucesso no exterior. Ao final do estudo, foram propostas recomendações para que as empresas brasileiras comecem a gerenciar suas equipes globais de forma a evitar os problemas que a multiculturalidade pode trazer, que vão desde conflitos entre pessoas até o fracasso do projeto. / The internationalization of Brazilian companies brings a new reality: the need for implementation of global projects. These, in turn, carry in their essence the challenge of managing multicultural teams. Being a recent phenomenon, with little theoretical development, this study sought to understand the relationships between cultural features and performance of project teams in global projects of Brazilian multinationals, in contexts of high and low cultural distance. Once these relations were identified, we tried to understand them in light of the teams management process. To carry out this discussion, we undertook a field study, with both quantitative and qualitative focus, of 34 global projects of Brazilian multinationals, in which people from 22 countries took part. The results indicate that cultural traits are associated to team performance, whether technical or human, and this association has different intensities depending on the context. At the end of the study, recommendations were proposed for Brazilian companies to start managing their global teams so as to avoid the problems that multiculturalism can bring, which range from conflicts between people until the complete failure of the project.

This final thesis deals with a topic of multicultural cooperation in teams. It focuses namely on identifying ohow multicultural environment influences work in teams as well as on investigation how cooperation in multicultural teams can be enhanced. Attention is also paid to virtual teams as a subtopic of multicultural teams.

Economic globalization has greatly increased opportunities, but also requires the organizations to be more open and constantly try to create a new working environment. Organizations today are composed of people of different races, ages, languages, religions, and lifestyles. Organizational management's work tends to use a coordinated approach to bring people from different backgrounds together and maximize the ability and talent through multicultural teams. If managed properly, diversity can bring a competitive advantage to the organizations, but if poorly managed, workforce diversity can have negative outcomes. Due to the lack of research on which organizational level is cultural diversity advantageous for organizations to have, this study will focus on understanding cultural diversity and explore new perspectives about the experiences of different individuals in multicultural settings. This qualitative study takes social constructivism as a philosophical position. It has drawn conclusions by an inductive approach based on the empirical data which we have collected through the interviews and literature, where the focus was to construct meaning and interpret the data collected which came from the experiences of the participants.

To cope with increasing demands and competition in the ever-growing global market, organizations have been increasing the use and formation of multicultural teams (MCTs). Though advantageous in numerous aspects, MCT literature lays significant focus on the struggles in managing communication and cohesion in these teams. Journalists and organizational psychologists propose an emergent generation of individuals who are eager and accustomed to working with people worldwide. This Generation Global is composed of individuals who possess a global mindset and cultural intelligence, allowing them to navigate multicultural environments successfully. This paper conducts a qualitative case study on an MCT in the global cybersecurity company, MobileIron, to observe whether the main challenges found in previous literature prevail in MCTs composed of Generation Global individuals. The results demonstrate that cross-cultural communication is a less significant issue and strains in team cohesion are nonexistent in these teams due to the collective cultural intelligence and global identity within the team. / For att hantera den alltmer vaxande globala marknaden har det blivit alltmer vanligt för organisationer att bilda mångkulturella teams, MCTs. Även om kulturell mångfald är till storsta del fördelaktig så påvisar MCT litteraturen att de mest förekommande utmaningarna är kommunikation och sammanhållning. Journalister och organisationspsykologer menar dock att det finns en ny framväxande generation av individer som är erfarna att samarbeta med människor ifrån hela världen. Den benämns den globala generationen, GG, och består av individer som har en global identitet och kulturell intelligens, vilket möjliggör dem att hantera mångkulturella miljöer. Denna uppsats utför en kvalitativ studie på ett MCT i det globala cybersäkerhetsföretaget, MobileIron. Syften är att undersöka om de utmaningar som hittats tidigare även uppkommer i MCTs som består av GG individer. Resultaten visar att tvärkulturell kommunikation är en mindre betydelsefull fråga och att spänningar i sammanhållning inte finns i dessa team. Detta på grund av den kollektiva kulturella intelligensen och globala identiteten i teamet.