The globalization of business, increased
mobility of labor across geographic borders is leading
to multiculturalism among several countries. For instance,
in countries such as Canada, US, UK, and Australia, multiculturalism
is increasingly becoming an integral part of the national
identity. In addition, cross-border mergers and acquisitions
(eg. ArcelorMittal) and deployment of teams for certain
projects, require organizations to draw from a pool of
human resources from different countries. Royal Dutch Shell
deploys multicultural teams to discover oil in remote locations.
These projects require specialist skills and the company
draws from its pool of multicultural workforce spread across
different countries. Therefore, organizations have to pay
due attention to the management of a diverse workforce
and development of multicultural teams. This implies equipping
employees with basic skills pertaining to cross-cultural
awareness and competence to deal with cultural issues.
In the competitive business environment,
fostering teams within organizations is gaining importance
for organizational leaders. Michael Dell, CEO of Dell Computers,
believes that business is all about building teams and
talent in the organization. In several organizations, a
number of challenging tasks are accomplished through teamwork.
Organizations are working across national borders to reach
and maintain market leadership. Leaders also have to motivate
and develop people from different cultural backgrounds,
experiences, and working styles to collaborate effectively
across time zones. This is becoming a common phenomenon
across several organizations. While earlier, teams used
to predominantly comprise members from the same culture,
these days they are multicultural in nature. A multicultural
team is a distinct entity made up of various ethnic, national
and business cultures. |
