22 Common Guidelines and Principles Used in Building learn and Organizational Multicultural Effectiveness

Co-Authors: SANTHER RUBINI ANGELICA A/P ARUMUGAM (BB211100040) , PUTERI SYAHKINAH (BB21110610), MOHD FAIZUL ABDULLAH (BB21110271), WONG JING CHI (BB21110119), NOOR SHAHKIRAH BINTI AHMAD LATIF (BB21110343), WICEAL BINTI MOHIYA (BB21161046)

“The Importance Of Organizational Culture” by ate Woodbury is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0

In today’s workplace, our colleagues may not be located in the same office, city, or even country. A growing number of tech companies have a global workforce comprised of employees with varied experiences and perspectives. This diversity allows companies to compete in the rapidly evolving technological environment.

But geographically dispersed teams can face challenges. Managing and maintaining high-performing development teams is difficult even when the members are co-located; when team members come from different backgrounds and locations, that makes it even harder. Communication can deteriorate, misunderstandings can happen, and teams may stop trusting each other—all of which can affect the success of the company.

What factors can cause confusion in global communication? In her book, “The Culture Map,” Erin Meyer presents eight scales into which all global cultures fit. We can use these scales to improve our relationships with international colleagues. She identifies the United States as a very low-context culture in the communication scale. In contrast, Japan is identified as a high-context culture.

What does it mean to be a high- or low-context culture? In the United States, children learn to communicate explicitly: “Say what you mean; mean what you say” is a common principle of communication. On the other hand, Japanese children learn to communicate effectively by mastering the ability to “read the air.” That means they are able to read between the lines and pick up on social cues when communicating.

Most Asian cultures follow the high-context style of communication. Not surprisingly, the United States, a young country composed of immigrants, follows a low-context culture: Since the people who immigrated to the United States came from different cultural backgrounds, they had no choice but to communicate explicitly and directly.

In today’s workplace, our colleagues may not be located in the same office, city, or even country. A growing number of tech companies have a global workforce comprised of employees with varied experiences and perspectives. This diversity allows companies to compete in the rapidly evolving technological environment.

But geographically dispersed teams can face challenges. Managing and maintaining high-performing development teams is difficult even when the members are co-located; when team members come from different backgrounds and locations, that makes it even harder. Communication can deteriorate, misunderstandings can happen, and teams may stop trusting each other—all of which can affect the success of the company.

What factors can cause confusion in global communication? In her book, “The Culture Map,” Erin Meyer presents eight scales into which all global cultures fit. We can use these scales to improve our relationships with international colleagues. She identifies the United States as a very low-context culture in the communication scale. In contrast, Japan is identified as a high-context culture.

What does it mean to be a high- or low-context culture? In the United States, children learn to communicate explicitly: “Say what you mean; mean what you say” is a common principle of communication. On the other hand, Japanese children learn to communicate effectively by mastering the ability to “read the air.” That means they are able to read between the lines and pick up on social cues when communicating.

Most Asian cultures follow the high-context style of communication. Not surprisingly, the United States, a young country composed of immigrants, follows a low-context culture: Since the people who immigrated to the United States came from different cultural backgrounds, they had no choice but to communicate explicitly and directly.

Intercultural communication

Intercultural communication is a discipline that studies communication across different cultures and social groups, or how culture affects communication. It describes the wide range of communication processes and problems that naturally appear within an organization or social context made up of individuals from different religious, social, ethnic, and educational backgrounds. In this sense, it seeks to understand how people from different countries and cultures act, communicate, and perceive the world around them. Intercultural communication focuses on the recognition and respect of those with cultural differences. The goal is mutual adaptation between two or more distinct cultures which leads to biculturalism/multiculturalism rather than complete assimilation. It promotes the development of cultural sensitivity and allows for empathic understanding across different cultures.

Intercultural communication is the idea of knowing how to communicate in different parts of the world. Intercultural communication uses theories within groups of people to achieve a sense of cultural diversity. This is in the hopes of people being able to learn new things from different cultures. The theories used give people an enhanced perspective on when it is appropriate to act in situations without disrespecting the people within these cultures; it also enhances their perspective on achieving cultural diversity through the ideas of intercultural communication.

Many people in intercultural business communication argue that culture determines how individuals encode messages, what medium they choose for transmitting them, and the way messages are interpreted. With regard to intercultural communication proper, it studies situations where people from different cultural backgrounds interact. Aside from language, intercultural communication focuses on social attributes, thought patterns, and the cultures of different groups of people. It also involves understanding the different cultures, languages and customs of people from other countries.

Learning the tools to facilitate cross-cultural interaction is the subject of cultural agility, a term presently used to design a complex set of competencies required to allow an individual or an organization to perform successfully in cross-cultural situations.

Intercultural communication plays a role in social sciences such as anthropology, cultural studies, linguistics, psychology, and communication studies. Intercultural communication is also referred to as the base for international businesses. Several cross-cultural service providers assist with the development of intercultural communication skills. Research is a major part of the development of intercultural communication skills. Intercultural communication is in a way the ‘interaction with speakers of other languages on equal terms and respecting their identities’.

Identity and culture are also studied within the discipline of communication to analyze how globalization influences ways of thinking, beliefs, values, and identity within and between cultural environments. Intercultural communication scholars approach theory with a dynamic outlook and do not believe culture can be measured nor that cultures share universal attributes. Scholars acknowledge that culture and communication shift along with societal changes and theories should consider the constant shifting and nuances of society.

Two women communicating beyond language

The study of intercultural communication requires intercultural understanding. Intercultural understanding is the ability to understand and value cultural differences. Language is an example of an important cultural component that is linked to intercultural understanding.

Intercultural communication is something that is not just needed in the United States, but it is also needed in many other parts of the world. Wherever intercultural communication is, it helps to not only create behaviors between domestic and international contexts but also becomes a shared experience for all.

Cultural convergence

“Dimensions of Organizational Culture Profile (OCP)” by O’Reilly, C. A., III, Chatman, J. A., & Caldwell, D. F. is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0

The theory that when two cultures come together, similarities in ideas and aspects will become more prevalent as members of the two cultures get to know one another. In a relatively closed social system, in which communication among members is unrestricted, the system as a whole will tend to converge over time toward a state of greater cultural uniformity. The system will tend to diverge toward diversity when communication is restricted.

Communication accommodation theory

This theory focuses on linguistic strategies to decrease or increase communicative distances. In relation to linguistics, communication accommodation theory is the idea that when two people are speaking to one another, one participant modifies the way they speak to accommodate another person in a given context. This is similar to code-switching in the sense that people are changing their dialects from a given language, to adjust to a different setting for others to understand. Communication accommodation theory seeks to explain and predict why, when, and how people adjust their communicative behavior during social interaction and what social consequences result from these adjustments.

Intercultural adaptation

Intercultural adaptation is the idea that after living in a culture for an extended period of time, people will start to develop the ideas, rules, values, among other themes of that culture. Adaptation theories conclude that in order to adapt, immigrants need to fully engage in changing one’s self beliefs to that of the society’s majority. To elaborate, for example, while someone lives abroad it is imperative they are ready to change in order to live cohesively with their new culture. By understanding intercultural competence, we know that people have an understanding of what it takes to thrive in a culture, by following the norms and ideals that are presented. Intercultural adaptation involves learned communicative competence. Communicative competence is defined as thinking, feeling, and pragmatically behaving in ways defined as appropriate by the dominant mainstream culture. Communication competence is an outcomes-based measure conceptualized as functional/operational conformity to environmental criteria such as working conditions. Beyond this, adaptation means “the need to conform” to mainstream “objective reality” and “accepted modes of experience”. Cultural adaptation is the process in which individuals are able to maintain stability and reestablish their environment while in unfamiliar cultural environments. Intercultural adaptation is a two-way process, this is between the host culture as well as the individuals outside/home culture. This is based on whether the host culture is willing to adapt, adopt cultural sensitivity, and/or adopt some aspects of the incoming individual’s culture. Intercultural adaptation is a two-way process.

Co-cultural theory

Co-cultural theory is the idea pertaining to a group of people that someone belongs to, with people from different parts of the world sharing characteristics of one another. In its most general form, co-cultural communication refers to interactions among underrepresented and dominant group members. Co-cultures include but are not limited to people of color, women, people with disabilities, gay men and lesbians, and those in the lower social classes. Co-cultural theory, as developed by Mark P. Orbe, looks at the strategic ways in which co-cultural group members communicate with others. In addition, a co-cultural framework provides an explanation for how different persons communicate based on six factors.

Cultural fusion theory

Cultural fusion theory explains how immigrants can acculturate into the dominant culture they move to. They maintain important aspects of their culture while adopting aspects of the dominant culture. This creates an intercultural identity within an individual, their native identity as well as their new host culture identity.

The term multiculturalism has a range of meanings within the contexts of sociology, political philosophy, and colloquial use. In sociology and in everyday usage, it is a synonym for ethnic pluralism, with the two terms often used interchangeably, and for cultural pluralism in which various ethnic and cultural groups exist in a single society. It can describe a mixed ethnic community area where multiple cultural traditions exist (such as New York City, London or Paris) or a single country within which they do (such as Switzerland, Belgium or Russia). Groups associated with an indigenous, aboriginal or autochthonous ethnic group and settler-descended ethnic groups are often the focus.

The Monument to Multiculturalism in Toronto, Canada. Four identical sculptures are located in East London (South Africa), in Changchun (China), in Sarajevo (Bosnia and Herzegovina) and Sydney (Australia).

In reference to sociology, multiculturalism is the end-state of either a natural or artificial process (for example: legally controlled immigration) and occurs on either a large national scale or on a smaller scale within a nation’s communities. On a smaller scale this can occur artificially when a jurisdiction is established or expanded by amalgamating areas with two or more different cultures (e.g. French Canada and English Canada). On a large scale, it can occur as a result of either legal or illegal migration to and from different jurisdictions around the world.

In reference to political science, multiculturalism can be defined as a state’s capacity to effectively and efficiently deal with cultural plurality within its sovereign borders. Multiculturalism as a political philosophy involves ideologies and policies which vary widely. It has been described as a “salad bowl” and as a “cultural mosaic”, in contrast to a “melting pot”.

Managing multicultural teams

“Team Culture in the organization” by Avindra Fernando is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0

Just how can you manage remote resources in a multicultural team?

For all sorts of reasons many more project managers are finding themselves with some (or all) of their project team members based thousands of kilometers away, maybe 10 time zones away, and from a range of cultures. This makes everything more difficult, and even the obvious solution of frequent telephone or video conference calls is fraught with danger.

Typically here in Europe or North America you would carry out a regular round-the-table team meeting, asking about progress, issues and upcoming tasks. Typically this type of meeting works well, as most Europeans and Americans are not inhibited about putting up their hand, admitting a problem, and asking for help. Typically, with many Eastern and Arab cultures, this will not work as well as the project manager might hope. Indeed, if the PM is not aware of the potential for different communication styles, the PM will not understand the messages that come from some team members. Well, this topic is larger than one simple blog post, but here are a few ideas for some practical approaches to managing a few of the common challenges found in a multicultural team. Some of these suggestions are focussed on the people and some are powerful project management processes that will help.

Some team members (especially from Eastern and Arab cultures) will not want to lose face, and will find it impossible to report bad news or a lack of understanding in an open meeting (even if this is run as a telephone conference). Such information-gathering must be carried out before any formal meeting, preferably in a private conversation. Even in a one-to-one conversation many eastern cultures find it difficult to admit problems with progress, and will not report failure. The project manager must develop a style of conversation that asks for evidence of achievement, and not rely on simple answers to closed questions (e.g. ‘are you on schedule’ will always be answered ‘yes’). Reporting issues sometimes can be seen as causing the boss to lose face (it seems like a criticism of the boss’s plan, and, by implication, the boss), and this is a total no-no to many Eastern folks. The project manager must work really hard to prove that the reporting of issues is a GOOD THING, and no-one will be shot for doing it. If the issue is not reported it cannot be fixed, so the reporting of issues is a powerful contributor to project success, and this must be explained in non-threatening terms to all team members.

Meetings can also be bad forums for arriving at a decision. Suggestions should be canvassed before the meeting, and then the meeting is used to confirm the group’s decision.

If the project manager feels that work being carried out remotely is at risk then the only way to manage this is through deliverables. If the work is truly risky (either because of scheduling constraints or quality risks due to unknown skill or availability levels) then more deliverables must be identified and built into the control management plan and the communication plan.

The remote team members will feel more trusted if you do not hassle them about hours worked, but show great interest in the deliverables they are creating. It is very difficult for a diffident team member to fake an answer to ‘please send me the XYZ deliverable that you have just created, as we need it for ….’. An issue system that is open to all, with a fully visible status and history of every issue, will also show that issues are taken seriously. This may encourage team members to report them in the first place.

Source adopted from “Managing multicultural teams” by Praxis Framework Limited 2023 is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 and “Team Culture in the organization” by Avindra Fernando is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0