Management International Review

Guest Editors' Introduction to the Focused Issue: A New Direction for Global Teams Research

Research on teams has traditionally been relatively simplistic and linear, looking at observable demographics, generic processes within teams, and outcomes of those processes. Most research on global teams has extended this view to look at the same dynamics in teams in a multinational context. When researchers think of a "team", they tend to assume something relatively stable and contiguous with a specific purpose that requires interdependence. But when today's managers in multinational organ...

Intercultural Learning in Global Teams

This study combines qualitative and quantitative data in order to answer the critical question, how is intercultural competence developed and spread in a multinational company (MNC)? This study suggests that the link between the existence of global teams and the performance of an international company is indirect: global teams help to develop intercultural competencies; they, in turn, contribute to performance. Intercultural interaction among the employees of a company, especially within glob...

The Importance of Language in Global Teams: A Linguistic Perspective

Often one of the main problems faced in global teams is that one or more of the team members will need to use a foreign language. This can cause communication difficulties and hinder the performance of global teams. The researchers discuss in this paper how research in linguistics can help further research on these difficulties in global teams, giving examples of different types of challenges and their implications. Linguistic analysis can enrich researchers' theories about global team manage...

Building Bridges, Windows and Cultures: Mediating Mechanisms Between Team Heterogeneity and Performance in Global Teams

Global teams involve significant investments by MNEs, and authors of work aimed at both management scholars and practicing managers have taken notice. Global teams are teams made up of people from different parts of a multinational organization working together to achieve a team-specific mandate that is global in its scope. Two characteristics differentiate global teams from other types of teams: deliberate and collateral heterogeneity on multiple dimensions, and a globally dispersed work env...

Melting Pot or Tossed Salad? Implications for Designing Effective Multicultural Workgroups

The literature on the functioning and effectiveness of diversity-based workgroups tends to take the single perspective of exploring the effects of cultural or demographic or functional diversity on workgroup performance. This conceptual article develops a coupling framework for the analysis of the functioning of multicultural workgroups by integrating several lines of research and by reformulating their traditional conceptualization, outlining implications for their design. Applying the conce...

International Experience Heterogeneity Effects On Top Management Team Advice Networks: A Hierarchical Analysis

This study examines the MNC top-management-team's (TMT) international attribute profile, its relationship with its individual team member international attributes and the joint effect these two levels of international attributes have on the individual's position in the TMT advice network on international business advice. In particular, this study examines how diversity in the international experience of each manager individually and in the context of the international experience of the entire...

The Impact of Subsidiary Top Management Team National Diversity On Subsidiary Performance: Knowledge and Legitimacy Perspectives

This study examines the impact of nationality composition within subsidiary top management teams (STMTs) on subsidiary performance. It first gives a review of the multinational team literature. It concludes that nationality diversity is beneficial when it is relevant to a multinational team's task. The study then draws upon two complementary theoretical perspectives: knowledge and legitimacy. It proposes that a heterogeneous STMT nationality composition may enhance subsidiary performance with...