Multicultural Teams: From variables to configurations

This chapter proposes a new configurational framework for multicultural work teams. It argues that in order to grasp national cultures and discover team members' sense -making systems, it is necessary to understand the extent to which the actors diverge or converge in managing collective action. Based on the members'national and professional profiles, institutional contexts and interaction modes as well as their differences in goals, Chevrier proposes 5 types of intercultural teams: strategic coordination teams, mixed operational teams, project teams, professional teams and quasi-homogenous teams. The author also maintains that cross-cultural management may be derived from the general processes of coordination which can be classifed under two categories - interpersonal coordination and interpersonal coordination. The first category includes mutual adjustment and direct supervision. The second category encompasses the standardization of processes, results and values (through organizational ideology) and skills The configurational framework delineates how each type of team can use different cross-cultural management modes to enhance its effectiveness.