Managing Global Work Teams: Challenges and Strategies

This assignment delves into the multifaceted challenges managers encounter when overseeing global work teams. It examines issues such as cultural differences, communication breakdowns, and virtual team dynamics. Furthermore, it proposes practical strategies to mitigate these problems and foster effective collaboration within diverse teams.

Running head: MANAGING GLOBAL TEAMS IN BUSINESS
Managing Global Teams in Business
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Table of Contents
1. Introduction..................................................................................................................................2
2. Project Objective.........................................................................................................................3
3. Project Scope...............................................................................................................................3
4. Literature Review........................................................................................................................4
Global Work Teams.....................................................................................................................4
Benefits of such diverse work teams...........................................................................................4
Problems and challenges in maintaining global teams................................................................5
5. Research Questions......................................................................................................................8
6. Research Methodology................................................................................................................8
Quantitative Research..................................................................................................................9
Qualitative Research....................................................................................................................9
7. Research Limitations.................................................................................................................10
8. Time Schedule...........................................................................................................................10
9. Conclusion.................................................................................................................................11
10. References................................................................................................................................12

2MANAGING GLOBAL TEAMS IN BUSINESS
1. Introduction
Over the last few decades, the global commercial framework has undergone considerable
dynamics and modifications, which have contributed massively in shaping up the modern day
methods of doing business. With time, the global business scenario has become more integrated
and inclusive, by reducing the geographical and cultural barriers existing in these aspects.
Phenomena like that of Globalization and Liberalization across different countries have also
contributed in making inter-country trade and commerce much convenient. This in turn has
encouraged more and more companies to increase their domain of operations and production
across different geographical location, to explore and take advantages of geographically
diversified economies and markets (Mendenhall et al. 2017).
With the penetration in the global markets, the workforces within these companies are
also changing significantly, with the companies having employees not only of different expertise
and experiences but also of different cultural, geographical and ethnological origins. These
companies, for the purpose of better and wider commercial prospects and for expanding their
domain of operations, are becoming increasing dependent on this geographically and culturally
varied workforce, which is contributing positively in terms of implementing strategic diversities
(Erez et al. 2013).
However, the presence of a global and diverse workforce often leads to problems within
the teams, in terms of misunderstandings, lack of coordination and confusions, thereby making it
a challenge for the managers to manage the global workforce in an efficient manner, such that
their productivity and success are optimized. Keeping this into consideration, the paper proposes

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to discuss and highlight the primary challenges which are faced by the contemporary global
business teams in their operational framework, which in turn becomes challenges to the
corresponding managements, emphasizing on the problems which crop up while managing cross
border business teams.
2. Project Objective
Keeping the above discussion in consideration, the primary objective of the concerned
project is to analyze and interpret the different challenges and problems, which are faced by the
managers of especially those multinational commercial institutions, which operate in different
geographical domains and have geographically and culturally diversified cross-border teams of
employees. For understanding the same, it is of utmost importance to study the characteristic
features of such cross-border business teams, the problems which crop up in such a framework
and the root causes behind such problems, which are also proposed to be studied by the
concerned research project. Apart from highlighting the different challenges which the managers
face, which in turn create hurdles in the path of achievement of the organizational goals, the
paper also proposes to analyze the different styles of management which are usually undertaken
in this aspect and how they can be improved to combat these hurdles efficiently.
3. Project Scope
It can be seen from the above discussion that the contemporary global business scenario
is becoming increasingly integrated and diverse, with companies hiring employees from different
geographical locations, cultural backgrounds and professional expertise and the work teams
becoming geographically varied within the companies themselves. In such a scenario, it becomes
important for the managements to design their operational frameworks in such a way that

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maximum advantage can be obtained from such work set ups. This can however, only be done
once the problems and challenges in the management of such global teams are identified and
tackled with. Therefore, to maximize the profits and welfare of the contemporary global
commercial framework, the challenges which are faced by the managers of the multi-national
companies in this aspect has to be studies with immense importance, which in turn indicates
towards the wide scope of the proposed research in the contemporary periods.
4. Literature Review
Global Work Teams
With global and geographical diverse workforce and global teams increasingly becoming
a part of the modern business frameworks, many literary works have been done on the aspects of
the profitability, nature, characteristics of such work teams and the challenges which can arise in
the process of efficient management of such diversely located work teams. There exists various
definitions and interpretations of the term “global teams” in the commercial scenario. As stated
by Moran, Abramson and Moran (2014), in their working paper, the term can be assigned to the
increasingly popular practice of the business organizations to form work teams across different
time zones and geographical and cultural boundaries, which in spite of their linguistic and
cultural differences work for the same organizational goals. In general, one individual or a group
of managers, who, with his base in one country, is assigned the role of managing the
geographically diverse teams, manages these varied teams.
Benefits of such diverse work teams
Different scholars put forward, several crucial advantages of the presence of
geographically diverse teams, most of which talks about the prospects it adds to the company and

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in terms of increased profitability and sustainability. According to Pieterse, Van Knippenberg
and Van Dierendonck (2013), the presence of culturally and geographically diverse teams in a
commercial institution can help in tapping the regional talents as well as comparative advantages
which may have positive implications on the organization’s profitability, sustainability as well as
global competitiveness. Klitmøller and Lauring (2013), who add that the presence of such teams
helps the companies in expanding their operational framework in different countries, thereby
helping them to exploit the opportunities present in the previously unexplored markets, support
their assertions.
Daim et al. (2012) puts forward the aspect of the continuously technological innovations
and improvisations, which makes it much convenient as well as cost effective for the commercial
institutions to manage their global teams virtually with the help of the different electronic
mediums, which make communication between these culturally and geographically diverse
workforces fast and easy. All these assertions together, point towards the benefit as well as the
need for incorporation of diverse work teams in the contemporary commercial scenario.
Problems and challenges in maintaining global teams
In spite of the presence of considerable prospects and benefits of the presence of global
and diversified workforce within a company, there remains several issues of concern in the
working of the same, which, as put forward by different scholars, if not addressed can be
immensely detrimental to the commercial profitability and viability of these organizations. The
primary issues of concern, as highlighted in the different literary works, are discussed as follows:
Communication Breakdown- One of the primary challenges faced by the global teams and
their managers, as argues by Daim et al. (2012) is the problem of communication breakdown,

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which often happens within the diversified teams within a company, mostly due to the absence of
proper and effective channel of communications between the geographically diverse work teams.
Other factors contributing to this problem are lack of trust, inter-personal issues and improper or
shortsighted leaderships in the company, which hampers the carrying out multi-national projects
of the companies Shaffer et al. (2012).
Lack of team developing activities- Dyer and Dyer (2013) asserts that often the global teams
are formed within the companies in ad hoc basis as per the needs of the situations. These teams,
being temporary in nature, start with the assigned works soon after team formation, which gives
them little or no time to build a proper plan for carrying out the task. The absence of the feeling
of a proper team mentality hampers the commitment of the members, thereby affecting the goals
of the organization.
Confusions in decision-making activities- As rightly argues by Liu and Woywode (2013), one
of the most crucial issues or challenges which the global teams face in their operational
framework, is that of the confusions and problems in decision making regarding planning and
executions of different strategies and operations. The geographical difference, different time
zones and variations in the work cultures in different geographical locations make it a huge
challenge for the cross-border teams to take operational decisions effectively and unanimously.
The presence of very little common office hours also contributes to the lack of communication
which hampers these activities substantially.
Differences in work culture- The presence of different and often conflicting corporate cultures
among the cross border teams of a company, is seen as one of the primary challenges in the
aspect of efficient team management, by Mowday, Porter and Steers (2013). According to the

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authors, these varied corporate cultures make it difficult for the managers to make the employees
understand their job roles and the common target of maximization of profit of organization,
towards which they are supposed to be committed.
Coordination failure- Another problem of operation of global teams, which is related to the
previous challenges, is the highly relevant problem of coordination issues in the day to day
activities in the team. As Alvesson and Sveningsson (2015), suggest often the problem arises
with the employees operating in one country and their bosses operating in other. In such
scenarios the support from the supervisors or managers often come in an untimely manner,
thereby leading to coordination failure, which hampers the projects of the company, especially in
which prompt decisions are needed to be taken.
Evaluation of team performance- Cappelli and Keller (2013) rightly puts forward in their
article, the problem of proper evaluation of the performance of the global teams by the managers
as one of the most concerning issues in this aspect. According to the authors, the remote working
locations and virtual communication channels contribute in creating barriers for the managers in
the aspect of evaluation of the team’s performance. Often these evaluations are erroneous and it
almost becomes impossible for the managers to keep track of the regular operations of the team.
This in turn hampers in the target setting and goal-achieving framework of the employees,
thereby affecting the companies adversely.
Lack of vision- The assertions of the previous authors are augmented by Crisp and Jarvenpaa
(2013), who argues that the lack of coordination and evaluation often prevents the managers and
the leaders to implant the vision of the company among the team members, which makes them

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feel de-motivated. This clubbed with improper information flow contributes in the problems,
which the managers face while managing such teams.
From the above review of the existing literatures in this aspect, it can be seen that the
problems and challenges, which the managers of multi-national companies and diverse global
teams can face, have been extensively discussed and interpreted by scholars from all parts of the
world. However, empirical and real life evidences rarely support these assertions. Also very little
has been said or done for designing wholesome strategies to rule out such problems or to at least
address such issues. For this purpose the point of views of the managers and other people
involved in the operation of the global teams need to be emphasized on and incorporated in the
problem solving process.
5. Research Questions
Based on the gap, which can be seen in the literary works regarding management of the global
teams, which is discussed above, the primary research question of the proposed project is:
What are the primary challenges, which are faced by the managers of the global business
teams in their daily operational framework?
The other research questions, which the proposed report wants to emphasize on, are:
a. What are the nature and extent of the problems faced by the managers?
b. How frequently they face these issues.
c. What are the steps taken by the managers to combat such situations?

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6. Research Methodology
To make the research robust and informative, the paper proposes to adopt a mixed
method research, incorporating both quantitative as well as qualitative aspects:
Quantitative Research
The project proposes to carry out interviews with at least 30 managers of such globally
diversified teams, who have the base in the country itself. For the collection of the primary data,
it proposes to design quantitative questionnaires emphasizing on the following points:
 Number of teams and team mates the managers handle
 Geographical locations of the teams
 Types of diversity in the teams
 Types of problems faced by the managers
 Frequency of occurrence of such problems
 Cost of managing such problems
The data collected are proposed to be interpreted and analyzed using statistical software
SPSS (Neuman 2013).
Qualitative Research
Quantitative research methods only focus on the cardinal details of a problem, thereby
missing out the ordinal and abstract specific information, which might be extremely relevant
(Liamputtong 2013). Considering this aspect, the project proposes to perform in depth interviews
with at least five managers of reputed companies handling such teams. It also proposes to
conduct focused group discussion with such global teams, emphasizing on extensive discussion
about the challenges as well as the ways in which these problems can be solved.

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7. Research Limitations
The primary limitation of the concerned research is that, though it tries to incorporate the
views of all the types of players involved in operation of global teams, it cannot take into account
the same for multiple geographical locations, due to time and cost constraints. The research
thereby loses the chances to study the differences in corporate cultures and work behaviors and
the scope to study how the same affects the working of the different global teams thereby
creating challenges for the managers.
8. Time Schedule
Research Milestones
Particulars
Durati
on Starting Finish
Research Ideation 3 Days 18-01-2018 20-01-2018
Review of Literature 3 Days 21-01-2018 23-01-2018
Research Design 5 Days 23-01-2018 27-01-2018
Data Collection 5 Days 29-01-2018 02-02-2018
Data Interpretation 3 Days 03-02-2018 06-02-2018
Publication of the
Data 3 Days 07-02-2018 09-02-2018

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Figure 1: Gantt chart for the Time Plan of the proposed research
9. Conclusion
In the contemporary business world, the implications of the global and geographically
diverse work teams are becoming increasingly prominent, with more and more companies going
global and exploring different geographical markets as well as newer domains of operations. In
such situations, the presence of global teams not only become beneficial for the companies but
has become a necessity to prosper and stay ahead of the competitors. However, managing such
teams are not easy as the managers need to face different problems and challenges which create
hurdles in the path of smooth operational framework of the companies and in attaining their long
term goals. The proposed research tries to shed light on the major challenges, which the
managers of global work teams face, and also tries to discuss the strategies which can be taken to
properly address and reduce such problems.

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10. References
Alvesson, M. and Sveningsson, S., 2015. Changing organizational culture: Cultural change work
in progress. Routledge.
Cappelli, P. and Keller, J.R., 2013. Classifying work in the new economy. Academy of
Management Review, 38(4), pp.575-596.
Crisp, C.B. and Jarvenpaa, S.L., 2013. Swift trust in global virtual teams. Journal of Personnel
Psychology.
Daim, T.U., Ha, A., Reutiman, S., Hughes, B., Pathak, U., Bynum, W. and Bhatla, A., 2012.
Exploring the communication breakdown in global virtual teams. International Journal of
Project Management, 30(2), pp.199-212.
Erez, M., Lisak, A., Harush, R., Glikson, E., Nouri, R. and Shokef, E., 2013. Going global:
Developing management students' cultural intelligence and global identity in culturally diverse
virtual teams. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 12(3), pp.330-355.
Klitmøller, A. and Lauring, J., 2013. When global virtual teams share knowledge: Media
richness, cultural difference and language commonality. Journal of World Business, 48(3),
pp.398-406.
Liamputtong, P., 2013. Qualitative research methods.
Liu, Y. and Woywode, M., 2013. Light‐Touch Integration of Chinese Cross‐Border M&A: The
Influences of Culture and Absorptive Capacity. Thunderbird International Business
Review, 55(4), pp.469-483.

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Mendenhall, M.E., Osland, J., Bird, A., Oddou, G.R., Stevens, M.J., Maznevski, M.L. and Stahl,
G.K. eds., 2017. Global leadership: Research, practice, and development. Routledge.
Moran, R.T., Abramson, N.R. and Moran, S.V., 2014. Managing cultural differences. Routledge.
Mowday, R.T., Porter, L.W. and Steers, R.M., 2013. Employee—organization linkages: The
psychology of commitment, absenteeism, and turnover. Academic press.
Neuman, W.L., 2013. Social research methods: Qualitative and quantitative approaches.
Pearson education.
Pieterse, A.N., Van Knippenberg, D. and Van Dierendonck, D., 2013. Cultural diversity and
team performance: The role of team member goal orientation. Academy of Management
Journal, 56(3), pp.782-804.
Shaffer, M.A., Kraimer, M.L., Chen, Y.P. and Bolino, M.C., 2012. Choices, challenges, and
career consequences of global work experiences: A review and future agenda. Journal of
Management, 38(4), pp.1282-1327.