Multicultural Management in the Virtual Project Setting

These characteristics may serve as the basis of stereotypes that obscure individual differences; prevent people from getting to know others as individuals; and acutely assessing their performance potential (Hunt, J., Osborn, R., Schermerhorn, J., 2005). On the other hand, the impact of demographic characteristics can promote team members to interact, which can contribute to high performance. Some teams who are subjected to demographic characteristics can learn to respect each member 's perspectives, and share the common organizational task.

In Communications Between Cultures individualism and collectivism are described by researchers as “self-orientation versus collective orientation as one of the basic pattern variables that determine human action.” These differences can be found in family life, school, and workplace

Ruth Benedict’s anthropological book, Patterns of Culture explores the dualism of culture and personality. Benedict studies different cultures such as the Zuni tribe and the Dobu Indians. Each culture she finds is so different and distinctive in relation to the norm of our society. Each difference is what makes it unique. Benedict compares the likenesses of culture and individuality, “A culture, like an individual, is a more or less consistent pattern of thought or action” (46), but note, they are not the same by use of the word, “like.” Benedict is saying that figuratively, cultures are like personalities. Culture and individuality are intertwined and dependent upon each other for survival.

“Acknowledges the fact that in individualistic cultures, ‘people are supposed to look after themselves and their family only’ while in collective cultures, ‘people belong to groups or collectives which are supposed to look after them in exchange for loyalty’”. (Theriault, 2016)

Looking at the chart the first dimension of culture plotted is individualism-collectivism. This dimension addresses how people define themselves and their relationships with others. Cultures that fall on the individualism side of the continuum share four characteristics. First, such cultures consider the individual to be the most important entity in any social setting. Second, individualistic cultures stress independence rather than dependence. Third, individualistic cultures reward individual achievement. The last characteristic is; individualistic cultures value each individual’s uniqueness.

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.

To best compare and contrast my chosen CALD groups, the cultures of the Aboriginal and Chinese people, I focused my research and analysis on the dimensions of individualism vs collectivism and communitarianism.

n For the very purpose of clarity, I had liked to define culture according to (Bauer & Erdogan, 2009) “as the values, beliefs, and customs that exist in a society.” (p. 39). On the other hand, individualistic culture refers to a “Cultures in which people define themselves as individuals and form looser ties with their groups.” (p. 40). In other words, someone who is individualistic tends to focus attention on what he can achieve without the influence or assistance of any group or friends. Doing things independently characterizes the behavior of an individualistic culture.

Moreover, Individualism is the cultural dimension that measures to what extent people to look after themselves and their immediate family members only. America’s individualism score of 91 is the highest in the world and higher than France’s score of 71. This kind of cultural reflect in American executives at Disney based on Walt Disney’s highly individualized, squeaky clean American family values to imposed a strict dress code at Euro Disneyland, such as required extremely short hair and banned beards and moustaches (Corliss, R., 1992).

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.

People are diverse not only by visual and nonvisual diversity but can also differ by characteristics of relationships. Different characteristics of relationships include: Universalism versus Particularism, Individualism versus Collectivism, Neutral versus Emotional, Specific versus Diffuse and Achievement versus Ascription. These are several different ways cultures contradict with one another when it comes to handling situations. For example, a universalist considers all people to follow the guidelines with no exceptions. While a person who follows particularism will make exceptions based on the situation. Individualists put themselves before members of the group. On the other hand, collectivists value the group as a whole and put the group

The results support the hypothesis that people from individualistic cultures are higher in cross-role consistency. They found that “people with independent self- construals have a greater need to express their traits, which in turn should lead to greater consistency. Similarly, people with greater self-concept clarity should be less influenced by social cues and thus exhibit greater consistency” (pg.747) People who come from individualistic cultures are more independent and have a stronger desire to stand out and be individuals so they have a stronger desire to express their traits and show more of their personality. They are also less influenced by situational and social factors so they are more consistent in showing their personality traits whereas individuals in collectivistic cultures may tailor themselves to their environment. They would rather blend in with the crowd rather than stand out so they have less of a desire to show their personality traits.

Individualistic cultures tend to favor feeling free and less responsible for the members around them. In class, we discussed our own experiences of living in an individualistic culture. For example, if a parent were to become ill and more dependent, it is not uncommon for the children to send the parent to a nursing home. The ill parent would feel embarrassed if their child had to help them use a restroom or bathe themselves.Whereas, in a collectivism

| The fundamental issue addressed by this dimension is the degree of interdependence a society maintains among its members. It has to do with whether people´s self-image is defined in terms of “I” or “We”. In Individualist societies people are supposed to look after themselves and their direct family only. In Collectivist societies people belong to ‘in

First, Individualism vs. Collectivism. Individualism is the social function of the relative likelihood of a free and individual means only take care of themselves and their families. By contrast, collectivism is the tendency of social functions relatively tight where each individual to identify themselves as a group with loyalty not need to be asked. The main problem of this dimension is the degree of interdependence of individuals in a