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Teams and Knowledge Management in Multinational Corporations

Learning Objectives (1 of 2)

Understand the difference between groups and teams.
Know the basic types of teams used by multinationals. approaches, and contingency theory.
Appreciate the challenges faced by global teams.
Understand the unique challenges presented by virtual teams.

Learning Objectives (2 of 2)

Learn about the stages of team development and what steps multinationals can implement at these stages to address global team challenges.
Know the unique suggestions to address virtual team challenges.
Understand the need for knowledge management systems within organizations.

The Nature of Global Teams (1 of 3)

Multinational corporations’ reliance on teams is increasing.
Required for facing inherent challenges of operating in a dynamic and rapidly changing environment.
Team-based approach enables multinationals to meet both local and global customer needs
integrates design and development expertise from around the world

The Nature of Global Teams
(2 of 3)

Group: two or more individuals interacting to influence and be influenced by each other
Formal group: created by a company to achieve some specific work objectives
Informal group: emerge as a result of organizational members' interests
Teams: a small number of people with complementary skills committed to common performance goals and approach

The Nature of Global Teams
(3 of 3)

Global team: geographically dispersed; differ in nationality and culture
Global co-located team: occasionally meet in person; common organizational goals
Global virtual team: work together by using information and communication technologies
intranets, Web meetings, WIKIs, e-mail, instant messaging

Global Team Challenges (1 of 2)

Individuals are from different locations and different nationalities, making collaboration more difficult.
Cultural differences can lead to miscommunication.
Differences in problem solving.
France – favors understanding why problem occurred; longer time to resolution.
USA and Britain – tends to quick identification and solution to problem.

Global Team Challenges (2 of 2)

Language differences can affect level of trust between team members.
Power differentials
Natural tendency for team members to categorize themselves based on similar versus dissimilar characteristics and behaviors.
Global virtual teams lack face-to-face interaction, which can slow down communication.

Exhibit 16.2:
Spatial and Temporal Group Possibilities

Building the Global Team (1 of 2)

Understanding stages of team development can help multinationals address problematic issues associated with teams and prepare for potential issues encountered at each stage.
Forming stage: Team members becoming familiar with each other and assess the tasks that need to get done.
Storming stage: Emergence of intra-group conflicts occurs as team members try to get a better understanding of what needs to get done

Building the Global Team (2 of 2)

Norming stage: Team members are familiar with appropriate team behaviors and focus on achieving team goals.
Performing stage: Team is highly functional and team members operate without conflict.
Adjourning stage: Team members disband as team goals are achieved.

Steps to Address Team Development Stages Specific Challenges (1 of 6)

At forming and storming stages, care should be taken to ensure that the right team members, with the ability to adapt to and manage the differences inherent in global teams, are chosen.
Where possible, Human Resources Management should be involved in team member selection.

Steps to Address Team Development Stages Specific Challenges (2 of 6)

Human Resources looks for three sources of capital to ensure teams function successfully:
Human capital: The various skills and abilities that can be used by team members to develop better collaboration.
Cultural intelligence:
Cognitive: Self-awareness; use of cultural knowledge when faced with cross-cultural situations.
Motivational: The desire to continuously learn and adapt to new aspects of cultures and their differences
Behavioral: The ability to exhibit the appropriate forms of verbal and non-verbal behaviors in new cultural settings

Steps to Address Team Development Stages Specific Challenges (3 of 6)

Human Resources looks for three sources of capital to ensure teams function successfully (cont’d):
Social Capital: The ability to function effectively as team members.
Associability: The ability to emphasize collective goals and to minimize individual goals.
Trust: The ability to have confidence in other team members.
Political Capital: Refers to the leadership ability of team members to remove team barriers and to ensure that team members have a shared perspective.

Steps to Address Team Development Stages Specific Challenges (4 of 6)

Prized attributes of team leaders:
High levels of cultural intelligence
Transformational leadership abilities
Servant leadership abilities
Being open to suggestions, especially those from underrepresented managers with local know-how
Listening skills

Steps to Address Team Development Stages Specific Challenges (5 of 6)

Training is critical to the success of global teams
Cultural competency
Language skills
Communication with nonnative speakers
Sensitivity to different communication styles; important issues
Active listening

Steps to Address Team Development Stages Specific Challenges (6 of 6)

Three critical aspects of team success relate to communications
Energy: Both the degree to which team members interact with each other through frequency of exchange of messages as well as the nature of the messages
Engagement: The degree to which team members are communicating with each other and engaged in the team
Exploration: The degree to which team members interact externally with other teams

Benefits of Using Global Teams

Inherent diversity in multinational global teams—in nationality, gender, and experience—is seen as a benefit to team performance.
Global teams benefit companies both internally and externally in terms of innovation and new product development.
Critical to organizational learning, an important factor in the competitive advantage necessary to the success of multinational corporations.

Knowledge Management (1 of 2)

Knowledge Management: Systems, mechanisms, and other design elements of an organization that ensure the right form of knowledge is available to the right individual at the right time.
The nature of knowledge:
Explicit knowledge: Knowledge that is codified and transferable by a common process or language; easily dispersed.
Tacit knowledge: Knowledge that cannot be easily codified or written down; learned by doing; home/hub-based.

Knowledge Management (2 of 2)

The challenge for multinationals now is to alter the use of knowledge so that innovation based on either kind—tacit or explicit—can flow from both dispersed or co-located sources.
Recommendations for multinationals to maximize use of knowledge:
Optimize innovation footprint to tap optional knowledge sources worldwide.
Improve communication and knowledge sharing in a dispersed network of locations.
Collaborate with both external and internal knowledge sources.

Exhibit 16.4:
Moving Beyond the Knowledge Dispersion/Complexity Trade-Off: Knowledge Management for the Multinational Company

Exhibit 16.5: Knowledge Management Barriers

SOURCE: Based on Riege, Andreas. 2005. “Three-dozen knowledge-sharing barriers managers must consider.” Journal of Knowledge Management, 9(3), pp. 18–35 ; Voelpel, Sven C., and Zheng Han. 2005. “Managing knowledge sharing in China: The case of Siemens ShareNet.” Journal of Knowledge Management, 9(3), pp. 51–63.

Knowledge Management Barriers (1 of 3)

Multinationals must assess the extent of barriers and initiate actions to reduce their impact.
Strategies and a reward mechanism should be put in place to motivate and encourage employees.
Robust use of computer and web-based technologies
Data repositories of explicit knowledge
Use tacit knowledge through networking, collaborative commerce, and decision support system tools

Knowledge Management Barriers (2 of 3)

Strategies for developing a knowledge management system that accesses and manages the tacit and complex knowledge in its dispersed locations:
Start small to develop a collaborative culture.
Provide a stable organizational context.
Senior manager oversight; rigorous project management.
Appoint a lead site.
Invest time defining the innovation.
Allocate resources on the basis of capability, not availability.

Knowledge Management Barriers (3 of 3)

Strategies for developing a knowledge management system that accesses and manages the tacit and complex knowledge in its dispersed locations (cont’d):
Build enough knowledge overlap for collaboration.
Limit the number of subcontractors and partners.
Do not rely solely on technology for communication.

Summary and Conclusions
(1 of 2)

Multinational corporations are increasingly relying on teams to integrate the expertise of individuals located in geographically dispersed subsidiaries.
Team work is growing in importance in the goal of developing and releasing new products.
This chapter examines the nature of groups, the difference between groups and teams and their various types, and draw a distinction between traditional co-located global teams and virtual global teams.

Summary and Conclusions
(2 of 2)

The demands of managing global teams featuring members who represent a diversity of nationalities, geography, culture, and languages are well documented.
This chapter also examines the virtual global team, which brings its own unique challenges to the organization.
Research suggests that a number of actions, framed within the various stages teams go through as they develop, can ensure that they function effectively.