Managing Global Teams

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Time Management and attention to data

Another key challenge faced by the distant teams is managing time and attention. How much information sharing is necessary and when does the data sharing becomes too much and where does one pull the strings is a key challenge as frequent and data overload may lead to unorganized data and inefficiency in the system. Excessive use of email communications and other collaborative technologies lead to humongous stress in data management, organizing, filtering and identifying the utility of the data. This could also lead to interruption and distractions in work. There also exist time zone differences among the teams functioning across geographies and thus challenges in time allocation and attention to particular tasks. (Chudoba, 2005)

Cultural Differences

Several factors that have been instrumental in shaping up the multinational teams pertain to cultural differences such as individualism or collectivism, time orientation and low and high context etc. Different teams belonging to different geographies have different cultural orientations to time such as one can find vast difference in present versus future time orientation or monochronic versus polychronic time orientations.

There have been several instances when cultural differences have led to arguments and rifts within the global teams leading to blame games. Furthermore existence of subgroups pertaining to local cultures encourages social categorization processes such as distinctions within or outside the group. This could result in conflicts, hinder information sharing, encourage in-group nepotism and discrimination towards other cultures and groups. Cultural differences could also lead to power contests and breed negative work culture and emotional reactions in the teams across the globe. This could majorly hamper the effectiveness in sharing of knowledge, work, dependency, team spirit, interpersonal relationships etc. Diversity in cultures could be due to ethnicity, nationality or even due to differences in personalities, cultural values. For example the Japanese believe in team work and Germany has a top down work culture where one cannot question the supremacy of the boss. Thus when two such diverse cultures collide in work space, managing the same becomes difficult. If managed well, they will bring in a lot of fresh perspectives, heterogeneity in knowledge and approaches to solutions but if not managed properly it could do serious damage that could be detrimental to the organization as a whole. (Caligiuri, 2012)

Comparative Analysis

Each of the four literatures considered has different focal areas in managing global teams and thus in isolation they may not seem comprehensive or would provide solutions to only come levels of challenges. While they are interconnected, these solutions cannot sustain in isolations. For example, while one paper focuses on the challenges in managing global teams in case of social distance and hence focuses on power perceptions and physical communications, it doesn’t have equal focus on other types of challenges such as cultural distances, managing virtual communication and virtual teams etc. While some literature may research extensively on the challenges faced in managing global teams from the context of their countries, they miss out on similar implications persistent in teams functioning in other geographies.

Solutions

1. Aligning all the teams across the time zones with the objectives of the company is of utmost importance. The first and foremost requirement is for every member of the team, irrespective of the geographies, to realize, identify with and align with the core objective of the company. This provides all the teams with a common direction towards achieving their goals. The global leaders should identify and disseminate clear task objectives that are aligned with the central objectives of the organization. These objectives could be geared towards achieving global or local efficiency and responsiveness and knowledge sharing etc. The team members should be aware about how their tasks is contributing to achieving the overall goals of the company and which are the different and specific goals and objectives and the different teams, locally as well as globally, working towards achieving the same are dependent on them. (Cordery, 2009)

2. Ensuring that resources required for effective management of global teams are available is of key importance. This pertains to facilitating frequent video or audio meetings, webinars, training of team members pertaining to different cultures and geographies in a group, brainstorming sessions amongst global team members belonging to different levels of management, email and other modes of communications, portals to share information and group, sort and arrange the information appropriately etc would be highly beneficial. (Cramton, 2007)

3. Frequent trainings to understand how to bridge the cultural gaps and differences, understand and appreciate the different styles of work and cultures with respect to different regions etc., outbound sessions for team bonding, brain storming sessions etc. would help the distant members understand each other’s cultural intricacies and influence on work culture thus reducing undue conflicts. (Ailon, 2008)

4. Managing vituality and cultural diversity within teams in every locations of the organization, cross cultural training etc. would solve a lot of hassles in managing global teams. The structural processes and social distance would not be an issue if the hierarchy is made such that irrespective of the country of origin, demography, power position, one can share opinions and ideas freely as in the case of GE. The mechanism created by Jack Welch to manage global teams is worth researching and emulating.

Bibliography

Ailon, G., 2008. ‘Mirror, mirror on the wall: Culture’s consequences in a value test of its own design’. Academy of Management Review’, Issue 33(4), p. 885–904.

Armstrong, D. a. C. P., 2002. ‘Managing distances and differences in geographically distributed work groups’, . In: s.l.: P. Hinds & S. Kiesler (eds.), Distributed Work, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press., pp. 167-186, .

Bazarova, N. N. a. W. J. B., 2009. ‘Attributions in virtual groups: distances and behavioral variations in computer-mediated discussions’. Small Group Research, , Issue 40(2): 138–162..

Briscoe, D. S. R. a. T. I., 2011. International Human Resource Management. 4th ed., New York, NY: Routledge. ed. s.l.:s.n.

Caligiuri,