In view consequently dictates the group’s attitude

In the business management context, culture is viewed as acrucial factor in effectively managing a multicultural team ( Hofstede, 1993)Literature review1.    Culture1. 1. DefinitionCulture itself is a complex termand can be defined in many ways. According to Varner et al ( 2005 ), culturecan be understand as the logical and mutual perspective of a group of peoplebased on their own  importance scale onlife aspects; this view consequently dictates the group’s attitude andbehaviours towards certain situations. Hofstede, being among the mostinfluential researchers in the field, has given the term a short definition as” the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of onegroup or category of people from others” ( Hofstede, 1991). 1.

2. National CultureHofstede’s study of members ofdifferent national groups unveiled initially the 4 main dimensions of culture : Power distance, Uncertainty avoidance, Individualism versus Collectivism, Masculinity versus Femininity. Afterwards, Hofstede has validated two moredimensions, with the 5th one being Long Term versus Short Term Orientation ( based on theEastern-centered research of Michael H. Bond ) and the last one, namely Indulgence versus Restraint ( based on MichaelMinkov’s approach on the World Value Survey data ) ( Hofstede, 2011 ). Thebasic definitions of the Hofstede’s dimensions are shown in Table 1. Table 1. Hofstede’s cultural dimensions ( Hofstede, 2011) Dimensions Definition Power Distance The extent to which people are comfortable with influencing upwards.

The acceptance of inequality in society, organizations.. Uncertainty avoidance How comfortable are people in dealing with unique situations Individualism vs. Collectivism How personal needs and goals are priotized versus the groups/ organizations’ needs and goals Masculinity vs. Femininity Refers to the distribution of values between 2 genders Long term vs. Short term The perservance values, future oriented ( Long term perspective ) versus the past and present oriented ( short term perspective ) Indulgence vs. Restraint Allowing the gratification of basic and natural human desires versus regulating it through strict social norms  Another notable research in thefield initiated by Robert House is known as the GLOBE project. Based on thedata gathered from 17, 300 middle managers in 951 organizations from industriesacross 62 societies, House and other researchers established a differentversion of cultural framework, eventually conceptualized 9 dimensions ofculture as shown in Table 2 ( House, 2004 ).

Table 2. GLOBE’s Culural dimensions Dimensions Definition Performance orientation The extent to which an organization encourages and rewards group members for performance improvement and exellence Uncertainty avoidance The extent to which a society, organization, group relies on social norms, rules and procedures to mitigate the unpredictability of future events Power Distance The extent to which members of an organization agree that power should be unequally shared Gender egalitarianism   Whether gender role differences and gender discrimination is minimised Institutional collectivism The degree to which institutional practices encourage and reward collective distribution of resources and collective actions In-group collectivism The individual expression of  pride, loyalty and cohesiveness to other members of the organization / group Assertiveness orientation The extent to which individuals of a society are aggressive, demanding, and confrontational toward other members   Human orientation The extent to which society / organization encourages and rewards its member for being fair, altruistic, generous and caring Future orientation The degree to which organization / group encourages and rewards its members for carrying out future-oriented activities like planning or delaying gratification  1. 3.

Organizational Culture If national culture is mostly seen as aprevalent source of underlying value to manage priorities, organizationalculture is often referred to as having direct relationship with desired practicesand orientations ( Gibson, 2001). According to Schein ( 1992 ), organizationalculture is formed under several conditions :·      It is a set of shared beliefs, expectation builton a group’s solution for internal and external issues·      It has to be validated as a working procedure·      It needs to be taught to newer members as acorrect way to respond to organizational problemsThe layers of organizationalculture are categorized into 3 fundamental levels. The first level is observableartifacts, including the organisation’s environment, visual structure andprocesses. The next level is harder to observe as it belongs in the domain ofvalue, in which it can be generalised as the organisation’s goals, strategiesand philosophies. Beneath the espoused value lies basic underlying assumptions, involving personal beliefs, unconscious actions and emotional approaches. Theseassumptions, most of the time, are taken for granted and hard to identify. 2.    Team and multicultural teamIn terms oforganizational performance, working in teams is often considered superior toother individualistic approaches through its ability to adapt, response todifferent performance challenges and pressures for cost, speed, quality andinnovation ( Gibson, Katzenbach).

Katzenbach et al ( 1993 ) coined the term “ Realteam” as a small group of people that works interdependently to reach a commongoal. The members of this group have complementary skills and share theresponsibilities for the job results. “ High-performance team” in particular isa team that met all the prerequisite conditions of a real team, in addition toa much higher level of members’ mutual commitment for growth and success. Eventhough the high-performance teams can significantly outperform expectations andother teams; its composition, however, is extremely rare ( Katzenbach ).