Cross Cultural Virtual Teams Essay

The positive impact of cultural diversity on group behavior can contribute creativity to a high-performance team. Membership diversity offers a rich pool of information, talent, and varied perspectives that can help improve team problem solving and increase creativity (Hunt, J., Osborn, R., Schermerhorn, J., 2005). Cultural diversity contributes various group input and group dynamics to the team. These two factors are essential in the high performance of a team. Cultural diversity can develop a high-performance team by allowing the diverse potentials of a team to operate. The negative impact of cultural diversity on group behavior can develop numerous of conflicts between team members. Conflicting interaction can limit or decrease the effectiveness and efficiency of productivity. There should be an awareness of the diverse culture values in order to prevent these conflicts.

Teams consist of personnel with varied backgrounds, experience, education, and intellectual ability. These differences will, by nature lend themselves to varying perceptions in business, its problems and solutions, which result in

In team leadership, the Hill Model is stated by Northouse (2016) as “to simplify and clarify the complex nature of team leadership and to aid leadership decision making for team leaders and members” (p. 366). This model has several key concepts and practices that this paper will look at and exploit the aspect of influence and processes that people in a groups or teams interact and the force within the group acting to unit all the members or leadership functions. Whether traditional leadership of teams or groups with a formal leader or a self-directed group with no specific leader all benefit from an shared leadership with the attention and focus of all members on the groups process dynamics. This is more so the case in virtual teams benefiting from shared leadership. Team-based structures in organizations have several positive characteristics and are capable of increasing production, allocation and use of resources, effective on making decisions and problem solving, increased quality and services as well as, fluent innovation and creativity, as listed by Parker (as cited in Northhouse, 2016, p. 364).

We are surrounded by people who speak fluent English, partial English, and, sometimes, no English at all. There are times when you can't communicate with others because the language he or she speaks is not understandable. People often ignore these people without noticing; if they have something to say, others don't take it as important, they don't take it as seriously, or think it’s worth listening to. People who are able to communicate with more than one language, have the opportunity to be able to connect with other people. If you listen, others may see things the way you would never have. What one has to say, doesn't make it less important if he or she can't speak the same

Derven, M. (2016). Diversity & inclusion are essential to a global virtual team's SUCCESS. TD: Talent Development, 70(7), 54-59.

Virtual Team on the other hand is a group of people working across time, space, and organizational boundaries which communication links are strengthened by the internet. It should be noted that virtual teams can also mean individuals spread across different cultures and languages. (“Virtual Team - Origin, Definition and its Scope,” 2016). More so, this team of geographically dispersed professionals working together as a unit despite distance are committed to achieving a single objective, holding one another mutually accountable.

In multicultural teams, members represent three or more ethnic background. Today, an increasing number of corporate task forces are globally distanced teams, that is, teams composed of members from around the world who meet electronically. The economic and political power structure of the representative members moderates the team’s dynamics and therefore, its

Hertel, Guido, Susanne Geister, and Udo Konradt. 2005. “Managing virtual teams: A review of current empirical research.” Human Resource Management Review 15 (1): 69-95. doi: 10.1016/j.hrmr.2005.01.002.

Globalization of the economy and increasing reliance on teams in the workplace has led to a dramatic increase in the number of culturally diverse work teams in companies worldwide. Such teams – with multiple perspectives – can boost firm performance, but that potential comes with some risk.

In a culturally diverse team communication is difficult because they may have different linguistic backgrounds, accents which makes it difficult for the conversation within the company. Lack of language proficiency of different people will cause lack of team work and less interactions with each other. In addition, individuals will take time to come to a single opinion because diverse nationals have differing opinions regarding the task. Reacting to authority also varies because most of the western people prefer to convey their message in a direct way, while it may not be so obvious in non-western people.Hence, there are lot of conflicts in people from different cultural

Globalisation has led to many changes in the international marketing and global advertising industry. Many international companies have projects spanning a variety of nationalities, involving great geographical distances and a range of time zones. In this scenario, companies are forced to make virtual teams - which are comprised of members who are located in more than one physical location (Peters and Manz, 2007). This virtual team trait has fostered extensive use of a variety of forms of computer-mediated communication that enable geographically dispersed members to coordinate their individual effort and inputs (Attaran, 2002). In addition, commitment to a virtual team goal may be further complicated by the single or coherent line of

The importance of understanding cultural, ethnic and gender differences by managers and professionals in a business setting is essential to make the work environment comfortable. In every culture there are basic standards of thinking, and acting and these cultural differences strongly influence workplace values and communication. What may be considered acceptable and natural in the workplace for one person may be unacceptable for another person. People from diverse cultures bring new ways of thinking, creativity and language skills needed to survive in today’s work force. In many

Both the team leader and the team members have very important roles in ensuring the effectiveness of the team. These teams, while carefully built and very effective in what they do, require constant leadership attention. This perhaps is the most important issue that could affect a high performing team. A weak leader, who is unable to set good examples or enforce good behavior and or performance accountability, could ultimately result in a broad range of team performance issues. A high performing team requires a leader who communicates clear visions and goals, motivates team members, and capitalizes on each individual’s strengths. However leading a project team comes with its own issues. These could include among others: a) dealing with diversity in the group b) ensuring quality project performance c) communicating and managing virtual teams d) setting clear goals and ensuring clear communicating with the team e) resolving conflict within the team f) staying on top of group deadlines and g) keeping team members motivated.

This report examines the subject of leadership. The objective is to outline the need for leadership skills in team operations. This goal is comprised of the three sections. The first examines the role of a project leader, such as external and internal facilitation. In external facilitation, focus is on negotiation and liaison with clients, top management, the public, and other stakeholders. In internal facilitation, the leader is expected to engage with project teams in planning, solving problems, and providing strategic direction to achieve all project goals.

Have you ever heard the saying, 'A chain is only as strong as its weakest link '? This analogy also applies to the performance of virtual teams. Team Johnny Bravo started out with good intentions, but struggled to find balance working within a Leaderless, Modular design structure. A lack of explicit team norms will impact communication and production efforts. This paper will discuss four operating norms, concerns with a lack of norms, actions to overcome those concerns and norm recommendations for Team Johnny Bravo.