Revision as of 12:11, 24 February 2018

Abstract

The art of managing multicultural teams esteems for project human resource management. According to XXX managing a project team can be described as "Manage Project Team is the process of tracking team member performance, providing feedback, resolving issues, and managing team changes to optimize project performance."

When a manager is working with a diverse team there will be some differences in cultural beliefs, values and assumptions in which he or she has to consider. The manager needs to be aware of what artifacts and basic assumptions that influences the team members, and which cultural issues may have an negative impact of a given project if it is not dealt with timely and with correct approach. ^[1]

Working with a multicultural team can empower creativity and innovation and has advantages in problem identification and generating alternatives for given problems; the team will only be effective, if they solve any given problems of internal integration.^[2] When talking about different cultures in the project team, one may not necessarily refer to national origins, but could also imply the different spheres of organizational cultures e.g. financial department, HR, R&D, marketing etc. One of the biggest issues a manager can encounter when working with a multicultural team is neglecting the cultural differences of the team members. Two team members, who have different national backgrounds may not have the same social relationship nor time perception; one may have a high emphasis on punctuality and specific deadlines whereas another may have a less strict perception of what is timely. It is therefore not only important that the manager is aware of the multicultural differences but the team members should also understand the cultural differences and learn how to bridge between the different cultures to minimize blindspots.

A diverse set of tools can be applied to understand and bridge between different cultures in a project team and one of them is MBI.^[2] This tool was invented by Maznevski and DiStefano, which was used to identify cultural differences and how to communicate and bridge between these differences. The key idea for this tool is to use the cultural differences in s synergic way, which should empower the quality of both decision making and idea generation for the team. ^[2]. This article will focus on the impact of cross-cultural teams have on projects, how and why they should be managed and what tools that can be applied to optimize team dynamics and performance.

Cross-cultural teams and project management

Managing multicultural teams is in the area of Project Human Resource Management (PHRM) and is typically referred to in project teams. Projects are considered independent from each other, well defined and it is effective when it sticks to objective REF fra dine noter. When talking about project management with human resources, it is important that one is not distinguishing with the general definition of a project, but emphasising a specific aspect of a project being the project team. The emphasis here will be why cross-cultural management is important in regards of project team management.

Different cultures would have a different set of assumptions and beliefs and when integrating these into a cross-cultural project team complications can arise if the manager does not acknowledge the differences, and use comprehensive tools to optimize group dynamics.

Management can therefore not be perceived as a general set of best practices and globally common principles and techniques since different practices, like performance management, can have contrasting effects according to which country it has been applied in ; these speculations are known as the convergence myths, which is based on numerous cases, and show how cultural differences still have a major impact when managing project teams. ^[3] When talking about human resources in project teams the resource aspect is comprised of people, which have different skills, roles, responsibilities, relationships etc. ^[1] The important aspect of managing multicultural teams in project management is to resolve issues bread from cultural differences and optimize group dynamic when changes occur. One key aspect to optimize the performance of multicultural teams is communication. Communication between employees and managers can help managers map a cultural pattern. This will also help the manager predict the behaviour of the team, which is important if he/she wants to minimize cross-cultural uncertainty; high uncertainty of the cross-cultural differences can have a negative impact on the performance of the team, hence a manager will have issues locating potential blind spots in the team. ^[4].

Schein And Hofstede

MBI description

Cultural frameworks

One team member may perceive time as monochronic and therefore has a high emphasize on punctuality, whereas his team member view time

MBI applicability

One team member may perceive time as monochronic and therefore has a high emphasize on punctuality, whereas his team member view tim

References

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1} Project management institute (2013). A guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide), fifth edition.
2. ↑ ^{2.0 2.1 2.2} Schneider et. al.(2014). Managing across cultures p. 210-213
3. ↑ Schneider et. al.(2014). Managing across cultures p. 8-20
4. ↑ Ochieng (2009). Framework for managing multicultural project teams p. 537-538