Multinational agricultural research teams operating in low-income countries must overcome communication challenges to address agricultural problems and rural poverty. Collaborations between dispersed ...team members rely on information and computer technologies (ICTs) to facilitate communication and share knowledge and expertise. These collaborations can compound dependencies of low-income countries on high-income countries through power imbalances and ICTs used. This paper explores impacts of these externalities on ICT communication between Lao and Australian researchers operating in Lao People's Democratic Republic (PDR) through the theoretical lens of intercultural rhetorical theory. The study used constructivist grounded theory methodology with 30 interviewees collaborating in research projects in Lao PDR. The results identified external constraints on team communication, such as: limited ICT infrastructure and user education; economic, funding, and political pressures; variable coordination between national and international organisations. Researchers can apply these findings to project planning and implementation to improve communication between team members and enhance international collaboration.
International dispersed (virtual) teams are becoming increasingly prevalent in complex international business environments, and their ability to handle internal communication is critical to their ...performance. Modern information and communication technology offer a variety of media to support team communication. Nonetheless, research is trailing behind practice and offers no established framework to explain media use in contemporary teams. Here, we seek to address this void. In a comparative study of domestic and international teams’ choice of media, we extend media-richness theory by focusing on the construct of complexity. Using structural equation modelling and multigroup analysis to assess a multinational sample of 285 project teams, we find partial support for media-richness theory and demonstrate the specific relevance of this theory to the study of communication in international teams. Complexity affects international teams more strongly than domestic teams, prompting international teams to intensify their use of rich and semirich communication media to an extent not observed in domestic teams.
Studies presented the importance of conflict costs. Cultural diversity adds more complexity to working groups, fostering conflict. The aim of this research is to investigate how cultural diversity ...affects conflict costs, measured in terms of lost time & cost amplifiers. Data was collected through an online survey with 490 respondents for national conflicts and 185 respondents for culturally diverse conflict situations. The differences between the two groups are explored by examining their impact on conflict cost amplifiers and the costs themselves. We found that intercultural diversity increases the number of conflicts per year. However, cultural heterogeneity did not affect conflict intensity, duration or the time spent on cost variables. This research is the first one to investigate the effects of cultural diversity on different facets of conflict costs. The results demonstrate the potential, as well as the need for further research.
Internationalization-at-home activities present relevant opportunities for innovation in the teaching-learning process. These activities provide a very broad set of advantages, including the ...development of soft skills and increased motivation of students. This article aims to contribute to the debate on internationalization of higher education institutions by exploring students’ perceptions and experiences after participating in an international collaboration project involving 153 students in 5 universities in Germany, Mexico, Portugal, Scotland and the United States of America during the Fall/Winter semester 2017. The focus of this study is students’ satisfaction and perceptions. Results demonstrate that although students found the idea of collaborating with peers from other universities very appealing, high levels of satisfaction depended on commitment, both their own and that of their peers. The feelings during the project were predominantly positive, although students recognized that they should have communicated more with their partners and put more effort in the collaboration. This article provides useful evidence for instructors that are considering an international collaboration activity for their students. It demonstrates the deliverables of such initiatives as well as the clear advantage gained by receiving students’ feedback. Hopefully it will inspire other instructors and contribute to the diffusion of international collaboration as a teaching-learning practice.
Purpose
– Most intercultural frameworks assess intercultural competencies, but global businesses lack instruments to support the feedback loop, that is help project managers answer the question if an ...effective global team has been formed. The purpose of this paper is to develop and assess a new indicator for measuring the actual effectiveness of intercultural communication and collaboration at the individual and team level, the Mysore InterCultural Effectiveness (MICE) indicator.
Design/methodology/approach
– Based on a needs analysis in global businesses, international projects, and review of existing literature, a low-touch self-report indicator was developed. A test run in several international companies with live data obtained from 154 employees helped to validate the indicator using exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis.
Findings
– The MICE indicator is based on two scales: first, the effectiveness in interacting and collaborating with foreign counterparts by providing an answer to the question “how I think I am with them;” and second, the satisfaction with appropriateness of communication received from foreign interlocutors and the outcome of the collaboration by answering the question “how I think they are with me.”
Originality/value
– Empirical results indicate that the two scale/six factor model provides a good fit to the data. Using the MICE Indicator, it is now possible for project managers to effectively address shortcomings of intercultural communication skills in their international teams with the right type of intercultural training.
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to contribute to the field of diversity studies with novel insights on how language diversity and communication frequency influence dissimilarity attitudes.
...Design/methodology/approach
The authors examine language diversity and communication frequency as group‐level antecedents for positive dissimilarity attitudes by use of questionnaire responses from 489 members of academic culturally diverse departments.
Findings
The results showed that communication frequency has strong positive relationships with three variables depicting positive dissimilarity attitudes, namely openness to linguistic, visible and informational diversity. Contradicting our predictions, language diversity had positive associations with all variables portraying positive dissimilarity attitudes. The implications of these findings are discussed in detail.
Originality/value
Few prior studies have dealt with the relations between language, communication and dissimilarity attitudes.
While much is known about the role of HRM in achieving positive outcomes in foreign subsidiary and international joint venture contexts, there has been a paucity of research into HRM issues in ...international project operations. In this paper, we develop an analytical framework to demonstrate the HR activities of each stage of the international project lifecycle, drawing upon supporting data from a study of Australian firms in international development projects. The discontinuous, complex and unique characteristics of international projects produce distinct IHRM challenges: for the supplying firm, particularly staff deployment and HR planning; and for project workers, in terms of career trajectory and job security.
International research teams that are knowledgeable about the cultures under investigation are considered a prerequisite for sound research. By virtue of a meta-analytic review, this study ...empirically compared international and national research teams that have conducted experiments on the effectiveness of cultural value adaptation in advertising. Results show that, although the composition of research teams does not make for dependable differences in the outcomes of these experiments, international research teams may be more capable than national teams in designing pairs of culturally adapted-versus-unadapted advertisements. It may not matter much, however, whether the international team includes a representative of the audience's culture.
Three hundred and fifteen workers from three multinational corporations participated in this study. The results demonstrated that group goals were able to increase task performance for homogeneous ...collectivist groups as well as for groups composed of both individualists and collectivists. The ability of a group goal to facilitate team performance for both heterogeneous and homogeneous work groups lends support to the intercultural properties of group goals for interdependent task groups.
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