Article summary with Multinational and Multicultural Distributed Teams: A Review and Future Agenda by Connaughton and Shuffler - 2007

Distributed teamwork has become commonplace within and among organizations. Indeed, nearly two-thirds of U.S. employees have engaged in virtual work. These individuals often work as part of a distributed team that consists of members from various cultural and national backgrounds.

Introduction

Distributed teamwork has become commonplace within and among organizations. Indeed, nearly two-thirds of U.S. employees have engaged in virtual work. These individuals often work as part of a distributed team that consists of members from various cultural and national backgrounds.

Prevalence of MNMC distributed teams

Research showed that diverse and distributed teams are becoming the norm for businesses and governments around the world because of the increased opportunities they provide. Although team members may work across major time zone differences, across internal business units, and across cultures, they can perform effectively.

Although the ability to use a wider resource base may be an advantage of MNMC distributed teams, these teams can present some challenges. Some researchers warn that 50 per cent of virtual teams would fail to meet either strategic or operational objectives due to the inability to manage the distributed workforce implementation risks. Also, the demands of working in a MNMC distributed team can be taxing to team members. As one professional explains in an article depicting her MNMC distributed team experiences, “There are delays in response and communication, and in such cases I might lose a day instead of a few hours… Communication and collaboration can take up a significant chunk of project time”. Understanding how to maintain effective MNMC distributed teams that meet the needs of both the team members and organization presents a challenge to both practitioners and researchers.

What constitutes culture in MNMC Distributed teams research

The current work on MNMC distributed teams, however, often has focused on a geographical facet, conceiving of culture in terms of broad national differences. Hofstede’s work is very often used to assess cultural differences in teams;

• Individuals from the individualistic culture were perceived as transferring more knowledge than those from the collectivist culture
• The conclusion is that globally distributed teams will be effective vehicles for knowledge sharing in an organization as long as individuals learn the cultural logic of others’ divergent beliefs. If not, culture is constructed as something which divides individuals
• In virtual teams, the individualism–collectivism dimension is an important dimension of culture as it reflects the extent to which members are inclined toward teamwork and open to accommodating others ’views’

This paragraph is about research that is done on MNMC distributed teams and culture. There appears to be a strong focus on nationality when investigating culture in this body of research, and several researchers rely on Hofstede’s dimensions. Scholars also examine team composition, often referred to as cultural heterogeneity. Some findings suggest that cultural differences matter, whereas other research suggests that they may not in teams that experience high trust or regular communication. Further research exploring these issues is needed.

The role of distance in MNMC distributed teams

Distance is viewed as both a challenge and as a nonissue to MNMC distributed teams. Although some work continues to frame distribution as a constraint, some empirical findings suggest that distribution does not impair MNMC distributed team collaboration or performance. This variation points to the need for future research to clarify the role of distribution and its effects (or lack thereof) on team processes and outcomes. Moreover, it should be noted that generally, previous empirical research on MNMC distributed teams tends to treat distance as a discrete difference (i.e., the team is distributed or it is not distributed). Although few empirical studies explicitly frame distance as a step function, an implicit argument in several articles reviewed here is that greater distance places more constraints on teams.

Recurring themes in existing MNMC Distributed Teams research

Scholars interested in MNMC distributed teams have examined several topics, See Table 1. Some of these topics are highlighted in the articl:

• Communication; This research has been concerned with pointing to communicative behaviors that are deemed effective in MNMC teams. Two behaviors emerge somewhat consistently in this research: frequent communication and face-to-face communication
  • Frequent communication. Several of these works suggest that communication frequency is a necessary ingredient in MNMC distributed team effectiveness. For instance, frequent informal and unplanned communication has been shown to be related to shared identity and shared context
  • Face-to-Face communication. Some articles privilege face-to-face communication as necessary for MNMC distributed team effectiveness. Face to face is found to be beneficial to reducing task conflict, fostering trust, and enhancing team dynamics
• Conflict. Several researchers found that: (a) the way virtual team members manage conflict is crucial in their success performance, and (b) temporal coordination has some significant moderating effects on team performance. They examine conflict in terms of specific conflict management behaviors, including avoidance, accommodation, competition, collaboration, and compromise.
• Temporality. These articles note relationships between temporality and MNMC distributed teams

MNMC distributed teams have several features

• They involve various types of dispersion beyond temporal and spatial dispersion. Distributed teams are geographically distributed in that they are separated by (great) physical distance (different cities, different countries)
• MNMC distributed teams may be permanent or temporary. In much of the current research, scholars conceive of these teams as temporary
• Although members of MNMC distributed teams often communicate via technological means, they may not communicate exclusively in this manner. Indeed, as many of the articles reviewed indicate, some teams may choose to meet face to face, deeming it necessary for team effectiveness
• They are made up of members who self-define as being (or are considered to be) from two or more national (nation-states), ethnic, and/or cultural backgrounds

Suggestions for further research

• Adopt Multi-Faceted, Multi-Level Views of Culture
• Future researchers should expand their conceptualization of culture to include not only multiple nationalities and demographics but also multiple team and organizational cultures.
• Acknowledge the Complexities of Distribution
• Future research must take into account the variation in distribution
  • Degree of virtuality. Virtuality (space, time, modality) is a matter of degree, and teams may be considered highly virtual or less virtual. 

A team’s degree of virtuality relates to the richness of the communication media typically used by members to accomplish tasks and the extent to which team members are separated by time and space.

• Degree of distribution. Another type of variation among distributed teams concerns whether the team is partially or fully distributed. Partially distributed teams occur when some team members are distributed across various locations, whereas other team members are collocated.
• History of the team. As in any team, prior knowledge about team members or experience working with a particular group of individuals can affect team dynamics.
• Degree of (im)permanence. The relative permanence of the team has also been argued to be a feature of distributed teams. Other scholars note that virtual teams can be temporary work forms, where “members have never worked together before, and who may not expect to work together again as a group”
• Degree of task complexity. Essentially,more complex tasks require higher levels of interdependence within a team, which can have an effect of many of these team processes, depending on where the team lies on other continua.
• When Are Culture and Distribution Consequential to Teams?

Third, future research must look at how a multifaceted view of culture and these complexities of distribution relate to each other in influencing team processes and outcomes. For example, in combining the complexities of distribution (partially vs. fully distributed) with the complexities of culture, one may wonder if a team that is partially distributed may be challenged (or enhanced) by the subcultures that may arise as a result of different locations.