Managing people in a cross-cultural context

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Managing people in a cross-cultural context

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Abstract

My company, REN, is a small company headquartered in Copenhagen. It is a new Japanese owned event company. It employs 50 people. The company has experienced problems with team building during its previous events because of the multinational nature of the teams. The cultural factor had not been well anticipated which can now lead to the failure of the development of REN. For a new event, it has planned to have a team of 11 working on the event. The manager is Japanese. The majority of the team is Dutch, the rest are Japanese. For this new event, the company wants to solve the problem in order to make the company more efficient. This report has objectives to provide some recommendations about the team building policy in a cross cultural context which have to be adopted by REN to avoid team building problems and make its teams more efficient.

Introduction
Summary
Meaning of a team
Creation of formal work groups
Things to be considered when building a team
Cross cultural environment and teams
The effectiveness of a team
Meaning of culture
Importance of culture
Hofstede's four dimensions
Trompenaars' theories of culture
Conclusion
Bibliography

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[...] Thomson & Mabey (1994, p 177) suggest the following ways of managing a team through the stages of development: Forming Clear introductions The leader must be clearly defined The leader must involve all the member Storming The leader must talk and try to resolve conflicts immediately The leader must encourage members to express ideas Allow members to change in a constructive way Norming The leader must not put the group under pressure immediately and should give it time to start working Performing The leader must not disturb the work of the group and just help if necessary Cross cultural environment and Teams Having a multi-cultural team is an advantage. [...]

[...] Specific: Relationships are formal or friendlier. How can culture influence team members behaviour? Harris suggests that culture influences the behaviour, strength and weakness of members of the team. So managers must be aware of the characteristics of the members of their teams to build a team efficiently (Naysmith, 2008) Bibliography Bennet, R. (1991). Organisational Behaviour. London: M&E/Pitman Handy, C. (1993). Understanding Organisations. (4th ed.) London: Penguin. Hosfstede, G. (2003). Cultures [...]

[...] Thomson & Mabey (1994, p 169) sum up the kind of tasks, which they think are better accomplished by teams than other types of groups or individuals: For highly complex tasks When consensus decisions are essential When there is a high level of choice and uncertainty When high commitment is needed When a lot of skills are needed Where member objectives can be galvanised For building strategy When balanced views are sought The manager has the responsibility to build an effective team. [...]

[...] The defining characteristic of a team is that its members voluntarily co-ordinate their work in order to achieve group objectives.' But as Thomson & Mabey (1994, p 165) add, a team is also small number of people with complementary skills” Why do organizations create formal work groups? Handy (1993, p 151 has summarised the main reasons which push organizations creating formal work groups: To accomplish a particular duty; To manage and control the work; To find a solution to a problem; To pass on decisions or information to those who need to know; To collect information and ideas; To test the validity and ratify a decision taken outside the group; To co-ordinate problems and tasks between functions or divisions; To allow and encourage individuals to get involved in the plans and activities of the organization; To resolve disputes; To inquest into the past. [...]

[...] Secondly , a team's and company spirit must be designed by the executive to match the social expectations of the employees to reduce the creation of informal groups which may develop purpose and values which are in conflict with the companies' interests. This team's spirit must, therefore, take into account the cultural differences between members. Then, the leader must design the objectives and work processes. They must be designed and agreed by all the members. As a result, it allows the leader to involve all the members in the final team's objectives. [...]

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