Question 3- Would you like to work on one of the IBM's multicultural multinational project team? Why or why not?
Same- culture teams are homogeneous. Team members have the same point of view. Multinational teams can offer multiple points of view. The participants have different backgrounds and experiences. They come from countries with diverse political and legal systems, social structures and religions. People from different cultures have different perceptions. They see the world differently and that is why they find diverse details important. The diversity of the workforce can improve the team performance through the variety of alternative perspectives and knowledge. They can define the problems better and can create a wider scale of ideas and better solutions to a problem.
Even in purely domestic operations, firms are being forced to form cross- functional, inter-departmental, cross-divisional, and inter-organizational alliances in order to make maximum use of scarce resources and thus increase their competitive advantage.
There are some negative points about multinational and multicultural teams. In multicultural teams, diversity may create negative dynamics such stereotyping, ethnocentrism or cultural clashes. In traditional, assimilationist-oriented organizations, cultural differences between majority and minority group members create barriers to full participation of minority members. Leaders cannot ignore diversity, because it may detract from performance. Moreover, employee who does not feel enough comfortable because of it in the work place – will not be effective.
But these points can be overcome by providing such environment that everyone feels comfortable in it. This can be done by implementing strict instructions to avoid such kind of environment.
So I would prefer to work in IBM's multicultural multinational project team.
Question 4- Multicultural project teams often face problems with communications expectations and values. How do you think...