Paper Example on Multicultural Teaming

Introduction

A multicultural teaming encompasses people from diverse backgrounds who work together to achieve organizational objectives. It is imperative to note that members who encompass a multicultural team have diverse characteristics like communication styles, age, disability, backgrounds, and sexual orientations among others. This paper seeks to reflect on multicultural teaming by explaining how to build a successful multicultural team, the importance of the multicultural team, enhancing multicultural teams in virtual settings, and the application to current experiences.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Order now

Strategies for Building a Successful Multicultural Team

Building a multicultural team is essential for organizational success. Building a successful multicultural team involves the application of various strategies. The first strategy is to establish rules which guide members in the team. Chevrier (2013) elucidate that these rules outline the principles governing the operation of the team to reduce internal friction between members. The next strategy entails leading by example to build a sense of shared purpose and confidence in the team. The ramification for this strategy is that it will eliminate feelings of disappointment, betrayal, and mistrust and thereby making the team united.

Another strategy is always to respect individual cultural differences. Hajro, Gibson, and Pudelko (2017) explain that this strategy encompasses seeing value in diversity rather than stereotyping someone based on nationality, physical attributes, language, and other characteristics. Harjo et al. (2017) further highlight that team members must understand their differences without overlooking their uniqueness. In case a dispute arises, team members must strive to resolve the conflict as soon as possible through the application of soft skills and open communication.

It is also vital to encourage participation among members in a multicultural team. A successful multicultural team ensures that each member's contribution to the organization is acknowledged (Ang, Rockstuhl, & Tan, 2015). This strategy ensures that there is openness within the multicultural team, a situation that promotes involvement and success. Team leaders should encourage trust among team members to create cohesion. Consequently, cohesion promotes productivity and perpetual existence of the multicultural team.

Notably, for a multicultural team to be successful, organizations need to select a culturally competent leader who guides the team. According to Lisak and Erez (2015), this leader understands individual differences and brings people together through his or her expertise to realize organizational success. Additionally, this leader possesses robust ambiguity tolerance to enable him, or her to interact with all people irrespective of their cultural inclinations. Also, a leader needs to possess low ethnocentrism level to bond freely with team members.

Importance of Multicultural Teaming

Multicultural teams are important for every organization. It is worthy to note that a multicultural team encompasses diversity which promotes creativity. Imperatively, as diverse team members share their ideas, they help to generate the most creative idea aimed at solving organizational problems (Fitzsimmons, 2013). Multicultural teaming also fosters team unity and commitment to an organizational objective. The ramification for this is enhanced efficiency and productivity of the organization (Binsiddiq & Alzahmi, 2013). Moreover, multicultural teaming improves communication skills among team members, which are vital ingredients in facilitating negotiations for improved working conditions and salary increment.

Organizational teams that are multicultural also benefit customers. Notably, multicultural teams ensure that customers receive better services which improve loyalty (Harjo et al., 2017). It is prudent to pinpoint that workers from diverse cultural settings connect with customers from their respective background. For example, if a customer who understands a native language rather than the official language of the company can be assigned an employee he or she shares with the language. Consequently, this creates a sense of belonging among customers.

Multicultural Teams in Virtual Setting

The advancement of technology has enabled employees to work remotely for a company. Employees, therefore, use communication technology for interaction across time, organizational boundaries, and distance. The virtual setting comprises of people from diverse and complex teams. Organizations should promote multiculturalism in its virtual setting through sensitization of team members on the need to constantly communicate with one another through emails, videoconferences, and so on. However, Lee (2016) acknowledges building a successful multicultural team in a virtual setting is a daunting task because of misunderstandings, misinterpretations, and incorrect assumptions associated with communications platforms.

Application to Current Experiences

Alibaba Company, a China-based online retail company, is an example of a business that utilizes multicultural teams in its operations. The company employs workers from diverse cultural backgrounds irrespective of their nationality, communication styles, age, disability, and backgrounds among others. It is worthy to note that the company organizes a program dubbed Alibaba Global Leadership Academy aimed at selecting leaders responsible for its international expansion (Steenkamp, 2017).

Conclusion

In general, when people from diverse cultures come together to achieve a common goal, they form a multicultural team. These teams are important for every organization since they guarantee improved organizational efficiency and productivity through enhancing creativity and morale. Many strategies exist aimed at creating successful multicultural teams. These strategies include but not limited to enhancing trust, promoting respect, and encouraging participation. It is important for virtual settings to adopt multicultural teams by embracing constant communication to create a successful organization. Therefore, all organizations should embrace multiculturalism to achieve unprecedented results.

References

Ang, S., Rockstuhl, T., & Tan, M. L. (2015). Cultural intelligence and competencies. International encyclopedia of social and behavioral sciences, 2, 433-439.Binsiddiq, Y. A., & Alzahmi, R. A. (2013). Work engagement and group dynamics in diverse and multicultural teams: a critical literature review. Review of Management Innovation & Creativity, 6(19), 12-21.

Chevrier, S. (2013). Managing multicultural teams. J.-F., Chanlat, E. Davel, et J.-P. Dupuis, Cross-Cultural Management: Culture and Management Across the World, New York: Routledge, 203-223.

Fitzsimmons, S. R. (2013). Multicultural employees: A framework for understanding how they contribute to organizations. Academy of Management Review, 38(4), 525-549.

Hajro, A., Gibson, C. B., & Pudelko, M. (2017). Knowledge exchange processes in multicultural teams: Linking organizational diversity climates to teams' effectiveness. Academy of Management Journal, 60(1), 345-372.

Lee, M. R. (2016). Leading virtual project teams: Adapting leadership theories and communications techniques to 21st-century organizations. Auerbach Publications.Lisak, A., & Erez, M. (2015). Leadership emergence in multicultural teams: The power of global characteristics. Journal of World Business, 50(1), 3-14.

Steenkamp, J. B. (2017). Global Brand Management. In Global Brand Strategy (pp. 181-208). Palgrave Macmillan, London.