Effective Multicultural Teams Theory And Practice

Multicultural and multinational teams have become an important strategic and structural element of organizational work in our globalized world today. These teams are demonstrating their importance from the factory floors to the boardrooms of contemporary organizations. The emergence of multicultural teams is evident across a variety of organizations in the private, public, and civil society sectors. These developments have led to an increasing interest in the theory and practice of multicultural teams. Management educational and training programs are giving increasing attention to these developments. At the same time, there is emerging interest in research about and study of multicultural teams. This book emerged from our teaching, research, and consulting with multic- tural and diverse teams in multiple sectors over the last several years. In particular, we have developed and refined our ideas about the concepts in this book from teaching an advanced course called Effective Multicultural Teams in the Graduate Program at the School for International Training (SIT) in Vermont. We have learned from the rich background of students who are from, and have worked in, six con- nents, and who are, or plan to be, working in the public, educational, not-for-profit, and for-profit sectors. Additionally, we have engaged with a variety of teams through our consulting and training, providing consultation to teams in a variety of sectors and continents as they struggled to become more effective.

This book addresses one of the most critical issues facing global business leaders and the multicultural workforce – how to work and relate effectively in the intercultural contexts. The author presents business professionals, practitioners and academics with the Collaborative Intercultural Competence Model. Based on solid theoretical assumptions and real intercultural experiences, this model is to help professionals work more effectively across and within cultures. This book expands the traditional presentation of existing knowledge by providing a unified discussion of intercultural communication and its conceptual foundations. The book offers readers with a contemporary insight into the intercultural competence phenomenon and highlights the basis for its experience-based inquiry, assessment and development. A distinctive feature of Intercultural Competence in Organizations is its comprehensive coverage of the intercultural competence framework from both communication and organizational behavior perspectives. This book does not cover traditional areas of international business, international management, global management strategy and policy and cross-cultural comparative management, but focuses on theoretical foundations of intercultural competence and intercultural competence research and practice. The author describes the complex nature of intercultural competence in a straightforward format which helps professionals, practitioners and students to envision a variety of intercultural situations in which they may behave competently. Thus, the conceptual acumen of this title is to understand the premises of intercultural competence, embrace its theoretical assumptions, see its practical applicability, and advance individual intercultural competence. Featuring examples and skill development exercises, this book will be appealing to professionals, practitioners, students, academics and policy makers in the field of international business, management and communication. “Dr. Matveev challenges his readers to develop their intercultural competence so as to make themselves more effective, more humane and more socially skilled in a world that increasingly involves extensive contact across various groups of people.” --from the Foreword by Richard W. Brislin, University of Hawaii “Dr. Matveev creates an awareness of intercultural competence by exposing the reader to the theoretical concepts and practical tools. Business people and academics will use this book to recognize and leverage the benefits of cultural diversity.” --Berthold Mukuahima, Director of Human Capital, Ohlthaver & List Group, Namibia “Dr. Matveev reveals how intercultural competence of professional multicultural teams helps in achieving corporate competitive advantage and longevity in a challenging globalized world. This book is very useful for managers, scholars and students who want to elevate the efficacy of intercultural relationship in their professional and personal lives.” --Srečko Čebron, Management Board Member, Sava Reinsurance Company, Slovenia /div

Multicultural Teams outperform other teams when you need creativity, commitment and buy in - but only if they are designed and managed well. This book will explain how to design and manage your multicultural team well, and how to create and sustain a learn-from-differences environment. Dr. Robin gives practical suggestions from research on how to design your team and then explains how you can leverage diverse perspectives within the team to maximize creative problem solving. These include: A clear, motivating focus that requires team members to engage in a conversation about why the mission is important strategically to the organization and personally to them; An understanding of how important designing the team well is, while knowing how to make the right intervention into the group process at the right time; Metrics that measure output, learning and satisfaction; The right degree of empowerment and the right type of team given your task and members; And the use of interlocking skills that maximize learning within the team. Every team leader's skills toolbox should include transformational listening, using names with ideas, and motivating others. The multicultural team management skills toolbox must also include the ability to give culturally-appropriate feedback, minority influence strategies, and attention to both process and output solutions to balance direct and indirect cultural styles.

Missiologist James E. Plueddemann presents a roadmap for crosscultural leadership development in the global church. With keen understanding of current research on cultural dynamics, he integrates theology with leadership theory to apply biblical insights to practical issues in world mission.

This book is a theoretical and practical discussion of intercultural communication and interaction and is aimed at academic courses as well as professional development programmes. It focuses, from a critical perspective, on the intercultural dynamics established between the members of multicultural groups/teams in various types of work environments.

As a result of the increasing globalization more and more organizations are operating internationally. Such multinational companies often rely on successful teamwork to reach goals and to compete on the fast-paced global market. Indeed, teamwork plays an important role and can lead to faster results. Teams, whose members come from different nations and backgrounds place special demands on operations, diversity clearly adds complexity and a longer learning curve for establishing effective processes. In the multicultural team, the role of emotions has gained increasing interest in the last years; practitioners report that where people work together, emotions are not far to seek. An awareness of emotions seems to be especially important as cultural differences in emotion processing and diversity among members may cause negative emotion and lead to conflict and misunderstandings what may have serious consequences reducing performance. The aim of this book is to identify challenges for multinational teams focusing on emotions within the team, and to propose emotional intelligence as an approach to multicultural team effectiveness.

A leading voice in intercultural ministry draws on biblical principles to offer a practical guide to effective multicultural leadership in a variety of settings.