Cultural Dialectics in International Teamwork Dynamics

Some people see multinational collaboration as a problem, while others see it as an opportunity. Intercultural teamwork involves a dynamic push-pull tension between diversity and unity which places its study solidly within a dialectic perspective. In-depth interviews were conducted with 27 individuals who held management or supervisory positions, worked on multinational teams, and spent time working abroad. Their companies represent a broad range of industries and collectively these individuals worked on teams in several dozen countries in Asia, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, North and South America, as well as Australia and New Zealand. The results revealed a variety of cultural paradoxes and dialectics, complexities, and differences which affect many aspects of collaborative work. The importance of cultural identity and relationship recur throughout participant narratives. Dialectics include self-other validation, autonomy-connection, national-organizational culture, work-life, ambiguity-certainty, efficiency-redundancy, and direct-indirect communication styles. Intersections among dialectics are also identified