The Challenges of Culturally Diverse Teams in Organizations

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School of Business | Bachelor's thesis
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Date

2022

Department

Johtamisen laitos

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Mcode

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Johtaminen

Language

en

Pages

31

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Abstract

Cultural diversity specific to nationality has become increasingly popular within organizations for various reasons, primarily due to migration processes, globalized business, and evolved technology. This means that the likelihood for people to work across national boundaries and work within teams that possess different languages, values and attitudes is common at present. Additionally, this phenomenon is predicted to increase in the future. Researchers suggest that national diversity has the potential to offer organizations various advantages such as innovation, creativity, and larger exposure to networks. However, what are the possible challenges that are caused by national diversity within workgroups? Moreover, from what do these challenges stem from so that organizations can recognize them fast enough and avoid team conflict as well as misunderstandings? The two challenges that multinational teams typically face is the following: relational conflict due to categorization processes and misunderstandings rooted in communication differences. Work teams tend to distinguish national differences and separate each other into national categories, resulting in different subgroups. Categorization triggers team members to form an in-group vs. out-group dynamic which can also be referred to as the “us-versus-them” tension. In situations like these teams lack a common sense of identity (a shared feeling of “us”). According to my findings, group categorization may cause dissatisfaction and issues with committing to tasks, ultimately resulting in group dysfunction. Significant contributors to group categorization are when members of a team carry nationalistic attitudes, they perceive the out-group as a threat to their overall well-being or when members possess varying proficiency in the shared team language. Secondly, communication is closely connected to cultural background. As a result, the way members of a team create mutual understandings and interpret communication is rooted in cultural background. It has been proposed that misunderstandings due to language diversity can be differentiated into two groups. There are the obvious challenges caused by a gap in language competence, and the less clear ones that stem from poor sociolinguistic and communication competence. Researchers call these language difficulties as “language barriers”. A lack of mutual trust within teams also has the potential to cause misunderstandings. Therefore, it can be concluded that multinational teams may experience issues concerning socialization processes. It is important that managers and leaders in organizations recognize these challenges so that conflict can be resolved faster, or even avoided completely. Employees within multinational organizations should also be provided with appropriate cross-cultural training and language education.

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Thesis advisor

Yli-Kauhaluoma, Sari

Keywords

national diversity, relational conflict, categorization, nationalism, perceived threats, language barriers, misunderstandings

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https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:aalto-202211066347

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[kand] Kauppakorkeakoulu / BIZ (Open Access)