Effective leadership for culturally diverse technology projects

Abstract

The challenges of managing culturally and globally dispersed teams are examined in a field study focusing on technology-intensive product developments. The results have implications for team organization, project execution and leadership, with special significance for the management of product and service developments involving multinational teams. The findings provide insight into the business processes, support functions and managerial leadership style most conducive to high project performance in such culturally diverse team environments that typically involve support functions, suppliers, sponsors, partners, alliances and joint ventures across the globe, and require the integration of many disciplines that often range from R&D to manufacturing and marketing. The focus of this paper is on team leadership and organizational conditioning. Specific suggestions are being made as a framework for assessing team leadership effectiveness and barriers to multicultural team performance.