Multicultural teams have become very common in recent years. With cross border mobility becoming much easier the number of people moving from one country to another has grown significantly. This has also led to more people from different cultural and ethnic backgrounds intermarrying. Their children could be born and grow up in different countries and have hybrid cultural identities. Globalization and the advances in communication and transportation technology have reduced trade barriers and increased interaction among people.
Multicultural teams have become more common in our organizations, and contemporary international management literature has identified that the management of multicultural teams is an …show more content…
Diversity augments potential productivity while greatly increasing the complexity of processes members must manage for the team to realize its full potential. Multicultural teams have the potential to achieve higher productivity than homogeneous teams, but they also risk experiencing greater losses due to faulty process. As shown in the following model, actual productivity of multicultural teams can therefore be higher, lower or the same as that of single culture teams.
(↓or↑) Actual = (↑) Potential - (↑) Losses due to Productivity Productivity faulty process
Multicultural teams, for example, can have multiple perspectives on any given situation, thus potentially increasing their insight and, consequently experience greater difficult than their homogenous counterparts in integrating and evaluating these perspectives, thus causing losses in productivity due to fault process.
3.3 CONDITION FOR HIGH- PERFORMING MULTICULTURAL TEAMS
Multicultural teams can potentially become the most effective and productive teams in an organization. Unfortunately, they frequently become the least productive.
The diagram above shows the relative productivity of a series of four – to six-member problem –solving teams. Culturally diverse teams often perform either more or less