Cross cultural teamwork

Abstract

In a company with an international business plan, teamwork across different countries is inevitable. Cultural, languages and geographical challenges are some of the aspects that can influence the work of a global team, meaning a team where the members are geographical spread out. The team members might have different cultural backgrounds, language barriers or may be located in different time zones. These types of challenges influence the communication within the team, which can lead to misunderstandings or disagreements. In project management this is something to consider in the planning, when trying to predict possible issues and delays within the work as well as the execution of the work, in order to make the process as smooth as possible. To use the cross cultural network as an advantage it is important to be aware of the differences, understand where the different stakeholder or members come from and use the differences to your advantage. To prevent these challenges to become actual problems some strategies can be taken into use; e.g. creating a common sense of goal within the team, show trust in the different stakeholders or members of the team, keep learning from the work and use new knowledge to improve the understanding of different cultures and people, building a sense of win-to-win atmosphere in the team among others. The article describes the challenges as well as strategies on how to deal with them.

Introduction

Introduction to cross cultural teamwork as well as some examples.

Challenges faced within cross cultural teamwork

Describing challenges that can occur and how they can influence a project.

Strategies to deal with challenges

Description as well as examples of strategies, which can be used to deal with challenges.