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Collaboration, learning and innovation across outsourced services value networks : software services outsourcing in China
This book collects and reports on the results of a study conducted on the Chinese Software and Services Outsourcing (SSO) industry, focusing on one of its main players as a key case study. Two sets of research findings are presented: first, the knowledge management and communication processes inherent within a highly collaborative software development project between the case study company and one of its long-term UK clients are explored and distilled into specific practices; second, at the organizational level, the strategies used by the company to build and exploit capabilities and to dynamically configure resources to promote specific value positions along its outsourced services value networks are identified and discussed. The significance of these findings for similar China-based global high-tech firms and the value of this organizational form in moving closer to the goals of the 2020 enterprise vision are both discussed, along with the implications of the findings for EU/UK businesses operating in similar digital domains.
Book
The impact of language barriers on trust formation in multinational teams
This study systematically investigates how language barriers influence trust formation in multinational teams (MNTs). On the basis of 90 interviews with team members, team leaders and senior managers in 15 MNTs in 3 German automotive corporations, the authors show how MNT members' cognitive and emotional reactions to language barriers influence their perceived trustworthiness and intention to trust, which in turn affect trust formation. The authors contribute to diversity research by distinguishing the exclusively negative language effects from the more ambivalent effects of other diversity dimensions. Their findings also illustrate how surface-level language diversity may create perceptions of deep-level diversity. Furthermore, their study advances MNT research by revealing the specific influences of language barriers on team trust, an important mediator between team inputs and performance outcomes. It thereby encourages the examination of other team processes through a language lens. Finally, their study suggests that multilingual settings necessitate a reexamination and modification of the seminal trust theories by Mayer, Davis and Schoorman, and by McAllister. In terms of practical implications, the authors outline how MNT leaders can manage their subordinates' problematic reactions to language barriers, and how MNT members can enhance their perceived trustworthiness in multilingual settings.
Journal Article
Language as a lightning rod: Power contests, emotion regulation, and subgroup dynamics in global teams
Based on an ethnographic study comprising interviews with and observations of 96 globally distributed members of six software development teams, we propose a model that captures how asymmetries in language fluency contribute to an us vs them dynamic common in global teams. Faultlines, formed along the dimensions of asymmetries in lingua franca fluency, location, and nationality of team members, were associated with subgrouping in some but not all of the teams. Our findings suggest that divisive subgroup dynamics occurred only in teams that also suffered from power contests, suggesting that power contests activate otherwise dormant faultlines. Our findings extend theory on subgroup dynamics in global teams by adding language as a potential faultline dimension, showing how power struggles activated faultlines and were, in turn, reinforced by them and documenting the emotion-regulation processes triggered by subgrouping and enacted through language-related choices and behaviors.
Journal Article
Managing formalization to increase global team effectiveness and meaningfulness of work in multinational organizations
Global teams may help to integrate across locations, and yet, with formalized rules and procedures, responsiveness to those locations’ effectiveness, and the team members’ experiences of work as meaningful may suffer. We employ a mixed-methods approach to understand how the level and content of formalization can be managed to resolve these tensions in multinationals. In a sample of global teams from a large mining and resources organization operating across 44 countries, interviews, observations, and a quantitative 2-wave survey revealed a great deal of variability between teams in how formalization processes were enacted. Only those formalization processes that promoted knowledge sharing were instrumental in improving team effectiveness. Implementing rules and procedures in the set-up of the teams and projects, rather than during interactions, and utilizing protocols to help establish the global team as a source of identity increased this knowledge sharing. Finally, we found members’ personal need for structure moderated the effect of team formalization on how meaningful individuals found their work within the team. These findings have significant implications for theory and practice in multinational organizations.
Journal Article
Top management team nationality diversity and firm performance: A multilevel study
This research reexamines the equivocal relationship between top management team (TMT) diversity and firm performance. Combining upper echelons theory with insights from institutional theory, we establish a new, timely dimension of TMT diversity—nationality diversity—and develop an integrated multilevel framework explaining how its performance implications vary across contextual settings. We find that nationality diversity is positively related to performance; and this effect is stronger in (a) longer tenured teams, (b) highly internationalized firms, and (c) munificent environments. More generally, our research demonstrates that the consequences of TMT diversity depend on the (1) specific attributes of diversity being considered and (2) firm and industry conditions under which strategic decisions take place.
Journal Article
Barriers to knowledge seeking within MNC teams: Which differences matter most?
Do international or non-international differences between members matter most for multinational corporation (MNC) teams? We consider two types of international differences, arising from geographic locations and national origins, and two types of non-international differences, arising from structural affiliations and demographic attributes. Examining the barriers to knowledge seeking between MNC team members, we argue that whether international or non-international differences create greater barriers depends on whether they are position-based or person-based. Using the Social Relations Model to analyze 13,616 dyadic interactions among 2090 members of 289 teams in a large MNC, we find that, for both international and non-international differences, those that are positionbased (i.e., geographic and structural differences) created greater barriers than those that are person-based (i.e., nationality and demographic differences). In addition, familiarity from a prior team reduced the barriers created by international and non-international differences that are position-based more than those that are person-based. We discuss the implications of our study for understanding the micro-foundations of knowledge flows in MNCs.
Journal Article
Unraveling the effects of cultural diversity in teams
Our 2010 Journal of International Business Studies article, “Unraveling the Effects of Cultural Diversity in Teams: A Meta-analysis of Research on Multicultural Work Groups,” attempted to take stock of existing research on cultural diversity in teams, to reconcile conflicting perspectives and past results, and provide a better understanding of the mechanisms and boundary conditions under which diversity affects team outcomes. To guide our analysis, we developed a theoretical framework outlining how cultural diversity leads to both process gains and losses in teams, and specifying the contextual conditions under which diversity contributes to effective team outcomes. We tested our hypotheses in a meta-analysis of research on cultural diversity in teams, encompassing 108 primary studies with a combined sample size of 10,632 work groups. The results suggested that cultural diversity does not have a direct impact on team performance but rather that the effect is indirect, mediated by process variables such as creativity, cohesion, and conflict; and is moderated by contextual influences such as team tenure, the complexity of the task, and whether the team is co-located or geographically dispersed. Unexpected findings raised important questions about the dynamics of diverse teams and underscored the need for further examination. In this Retrospective, we reflect on progress made in research on culturally diverse teams over the last decade, highlight remaining gaps and open questions, and propose an agenda for future research.
Journal Article
Cultural gap bridging in multinational teams
Multinational teams are an organizational reality, but they present several challenges. The literature suggests that individuals with multicultural identities are more likely to show behaviors that aim at improving intercultural interactions in multinational teams, though scholars have yet to determine the precise nature of these behaviors. We address this research gap in a multimethod two-study design by identifying five team cultural gap bridging behaviors (CGB behaviors: facilitating, translating, integrating, mediating, and empathetic comforting). In Study 1, we draw on one qualitative and two quantitative datasets to identify within-team CGB behaviors and develop a measure of CGB behaviors. In Study 2, drawing from two-wave survey data, we investigate and find support for the direct relationships between cultural identity plurality and CGB behaviors and the indirect relationships via cultural intelligence.
Journal Article
An Embedded Model of Cultural Adaptation in Global Teams
This research examines the process through which globally distributed work teams attempt to adapt to cross-cultural differences while being constrained by the local contexts in which they are embedded. We conducted an in-depth field study of nine software development teams that included 132 ethnographic initial interviews, periods of team observation, 19 follow-up interviews, and team meetings. Inductive analysis of the data led us to develop an embedded model of cultural adaptation in global teams to describe the process we observed as teams attempted to cope with important differences in interpersonal communication styles, preferred approaches to organizational control and authority relations, and work-related knowledge and problem-solving approaches. We show how local embeddedness and interdependence across sites together drive cultural adaptation dialectics as actors attempt to resolve rippling tensions within and across nested social structures. The model of cultural adaptation that we developed as an outcome of our research challenges literature that assumes adaptation can be contained within a team and is distinctive in incorporating a dynamic systems view of culture. We build on and develop theory concerning multilevel structuration dynamics. Our work may have implications for other types of boundary-spanning collaborations such as strategic alliances and multinational corporations.
Journal Article
Leader openness, nationality dissimilarity, and voice in multinational management teams
We argue that leader-directed voice (i.e., communicating critical suggestions for change to the leader) is a relational phenomenon, and that it is affected by an inherent feature of multinational teams: members' (dis)similarities in nationality. We tested our hypotheses in a sample of middle managers who were working in multinational teams. The results of this study show that leaders of multinational teams are more likely to profit from the local know-how of employees from underrepresented nationalities when they are open to their ideas, and when they have the same nationality. The study also shows that the effects of being open to employees' ideas and sharing the same nationality are mediated by affective commitment and psychological safety, respectively. We discuss how, even though the current relational demography perspective with its dichotomous understanding of (dis)similarity is not suited to capture the dynamics of cultural differences, it does set the stage for future studies to examine the cultural dynamics behind an individual's experience of being different from other team members in multinational teams. We also discuss the practical implications of these findings for multinational companies.
Journal Article