Effectiveness of Cultural Diversity on Team Performance

REVIEW PRESENTATION NOTES
Slide 1: Candidate Background
 I am a manager at Saudi Arabia airport and I have been working there from
last many years.
 I also won a scholarship in PHD in management area.
 I have been working in the same domain prior 9 months.
Slide 2: Topic Development
My broad topic proposal when entering the program centred on the issues of
diversification and diversity. When I started and I discussed the broad scope of the
proposal and that the first job would be to establish a focus for the research.
As you know Saudi is among the largest oil exporting countries (It amounts to
4.3% of the global value of all export products, crude oil shipment which is also the
total of US $ 678.1 billion in the year 2016. However, it also dropped down in by
11.4% and is seeking to diversify its economic base, including towards tourism and
tourism services. In some ways this is comparable to UAE with its airline industry
and Dubai as a tourist destination.
The Saudi workforce is also unusual in that it utilises a large number of non-
Saudi citizens (among 29% of Saudi citizens are employed; hence they get assistance
from non- Saudi citizens. Among the current population, 80% people work in private
sector.). As discussed below, this will be one of the attributes of the research that
could make the research findings novel or at least interesting.
Slide 3: Exploratory Research
Initially, I pursued the issue of economic diversification and reviewed some of
the literature about problems of commodity exporting countries, including what is
known as Dutch disease, strong currency effects and so on. After a couple of months
it became clear that this was going to be a topic that would draw me into economics
rather than management, and so around mid-December I started to pursue the current
topic of workforce diversity, and in particular diversity and team performance.
Slide 4: Introduction and background about your topic
The present research proposal has been describing the effectiveness of cultural
diversity on team performance and productivity.
In this respect, discussion has been included about Saudi Arabia airport
wherein cultural diversity holds more importance in all domains.

Furthermore, researcher has also stated about the gap analysis and about the
aspects which are not included in any of the previous studies.
Cultural diversity is an important aspect that aids the business entity to get
knowledge about diverse culture, norms and beliefs. Hence, focus has been laid on
cultural diversity and norms. Furthermore, cultural diversity can best be observed
through integrating it with team dynamics; hence researcher will be emphasizing on
the same.
Slide 5: Why Teams?
Ever since Adam Smith’s Wealth of nations has been published, the
importance of team work is identified. The study conceptualizes generation of wealth
by classifying elements of labour, capital and resources. The author has strived to
derive the theory of capitalism by associating worker and team productivity. It is seen
that team working has proved to be of high importance in recent past. However, the
literature published in past has not investigated team effectiveness for MNC’s. The
present research is therefore proposed to evaluate team dynamics and way in which
working in team is fruitful for the organisation’s success.
Adam also says that team work is essential in organizational dynamics as it
contributes much in managing team effectiveness and performance facets. At the
same time, Adam also added that with the help of diversified people in a team,
organizational work processes and competency can be enhanced accordingly.
Moreover, it is also analysed that there must be proper division of labour among the
employees so that each and every activity can be performed suitably. Along with the
same, it is also essential for the managers and leaders to focus on all fundamental
aspects so that organizational productivity aspects can be improved.
Another concept of team dynamics has been stated by Jonsen and et.al. (2010)
wherein it is ascertained that team work enhances organizational productivity and
performance because it includes involvement of different people who work together
to achieve a common aim and objective. Further, Joshi and Roh (2009), contends that
team is an association of people in which different people work together to attain a
common aim and objective. Team work is also essential because that aids the
employees to develop suitable relationships with each other to contribute in
organizational performance and productivity aspects.
In the present research study, focus has been laid on teams and team working
as it is a combination of culturally diversified people who work together.

Teams are developed for different reasons and it also has direct relationship
with cultural values; hence the interrelationship has been discussed in the present
study.
Organizational diversity has a direct impact on team effectiveness; hence the
concept of team has been included in the present study.
Slide 6: Why Diversity?
Diversity is becoming an increasingly important topic for at least 2 reasons.
1. There are more workplaces and teams in workplaces with diverse attributes
around age, gender, nationality, etc. and these teams are increasingly fluid in
nature (the project is becoming the organising principle of lots of work).
Earlier work on diversity, inasmuch as there was some, tended to assume
homogeneity within groups, especially at a national level e.g. Hofstede. This
was always perhaps a questionable assumption but it has become less and less
realistic
2. As a consequence the issue of diversity within teams and issues of,
communication, governance and performance of such teams has started to
become important. The example of Saudi Arabia airport has been taken
wherein different people need to work together to depict the importance of
cultural diversity.
Slide 7: Existing Research
As per the views of Jonsen and et.al., (2009), the cultural diversity is a factor
that has direct impact on team working. It is therefore necessary to understand the
impact of diversified culture and team dynamics on overall performance of team.
On the contrary, Saxena (2014) claimed that employing diversified workforce
is necessary to avail benefits of distinct set of skills, knowledge and experiences.
In the year 2007, Horwitz, Irwin and Horwitz argued that ascertaining a clear
impact of team diversity on team performance/outcome is difficult in nature.
Besides this, Erhardt, Joshi and Jackson (2003), articulates that there are
several attributes that make a team and organization successful. These factors are
identified as a part of research. Further, team dynamics is considered to be one of
attributes that determines success of team and organization in turn.
Yet, another study by Flynn and Chatman (2001), contends that demographic
heterogeneity leads to group norms and that also changes the perception of people in