In whom do we trust? Critical success factors impacting intercultural communication in multicultural project teams

Trust is a significant enabler for intercultural communication in project teams. Researchers and practitioners, therefore, need to know which factors might enhance trust in intercultural communication. Contributing to the yet limited number of studies in the field of intercultural communication for multicultural project teams, this research theoretically analyzes and empirically investigates the enablers of trust for intercultural communication focusing on emotional intelligence, empathy, interaction, and transparency. Using a field sample of 117 experienced project managers working in multicultural project teams, we find that interaction and transparency significantly and positively influence trust in intercultural communication; empathy marginally and positively influences trust. Emotional intelligence does not exert an effect on it. These results provide novel theoretical and empirical insights which have practical implications for project managers. The findings direct suggestions for additional theoretical work

An analysis of core-competences of successful multinational team leaders

Copyright @ 2010 The Authors. This is the author's accepted manuscript. The final published article is available from the link below.Researchers have endeavoured to understand the factors that enable effective functioning of multinational teams (MNTs) but with few exceptions they have ignored studying the competences of MNT leaders. In this paper we present those competences leaders must possess in order to effectively lead MNTs. Our findings are based on 70 problem-centred interviews with MNT leaders and members from five multinational corporations. The competences our interviewees mentioned most frequently for effective leadership were knowledge management and transfer. Results further indicated that a leader must be cross-culturally competent and multilingual in order to motivate MNT members to fully explore, exploit and transfer valuable knowledge within the team and beyond

Developing emphatic teams: influence of healthy organizational practices in collective emphaty

En un contexto de crisis económica y social, las organizaciones saludables y resilientes (HERO - HEalthy and Resilient Organizations) se caracterizan por llevar a cabo prácticas organizacionales saludables de manera sistemática, planificada y proactiva, que influyen en el desarrollo de empleados y grupos saludables, así como en el logro de los objetivos organizacionales (Salanova, Llorens, Cifre y Martínez, 2012). Según Hobfoll (2001) en el modelo de conservación de recursos (COR) cuando las personas cuentan con recursos que les permiten adaptarse o trabajar en su ambiente, continuarán generando más recursos que les permitan desarrollarse en el futuro de una manera dinámica. Dado que las prácticas organizacionales pueden ser utilizadas por los empleados como recursos que le brinda la organización para desarrollar su trabajo, según el modelo COR se esperaría que los empleados generen más recursos como podría ser en este caso la empatía colectiva entendida como un recurso positivo. Es por esto que objetivo principal de este trabajo es examinar el rol predictor de cada una de las prácticas organizacionales (i.e., conciliación familia-trabajo, fomento de la salud psicosocial, prevención del mobbing, desarrollo de habilidades, desarrollo de carrera, fomento de la equidad, comunicación, información, y responsabilidad social empresarial) sobre la empatía colectiva. La muestra está compuesta por 3.309 trabajadores, agregados en 566 grupos de trabajo de 137 organizaciones españolas de diversos sectores socio-económicos. Los análisis de regresión muestran que las prácticas dirigidas al desarrollo de habilidades, información y prevención del mobbing son las que mayor varianza explican de la empatía colectiva. Al final del artículo se incluyen las implicaciones teóricas y prácticas, junto con las limitaciones y sugerencias para estudios futuros.In a context of economic and social crisis, Healthy and Resilient Organizations (HERO) are characterized by carrying out healthy organizational practices in a systematic, planned and proactive way which affect employee development and healthy groups as well as in achieving organizational objectives (Salanova, Llorens, Cifre and Martinez, 2012). According Hobfoll (2001) in the conservation of resources theory (COR) when people have resources that allow them to adapt or work in an environment, they continue to generate more resources to develop it in the future and in a dynamic way. Because, organizational practices given by the organizations can be used by employees as resources to develop their work, according to the COR model it would be expected that employees generate more resources, as it could be collective empathy, taken as a positive resource. That is why the main objective of this paper is to examine the predictor role of each organizational practice (i.e., reconciliation family-work, psychosocial health, prevention of mobbing, development skills, career development, equity, communication, information, and corporate social responsibility) toward collective empathy. The sample consists of 3.309 workers, 566 aggregates in working groups of 137 Spanish organizations of various socio-economic sectors. Regression analyzes show that the practices aimed at the skills development, information, and mobbing’s prevention are most at variance explained of empathy. The article concludes with theoretical and practical implications, together with limitations and suggestions for future research

Conflict on multi-national construction projects

By definition, multi-national construction projects bring together organisations and individuals from different countries and, therefore, almost inevitably, different cultures. As cultures underpin behaviour and behaviour has major impacts on performance - both what is desired and what is realised - issues of cultural compatibility between project participants are important. A further aspect relates to attitudes to conflict and thence disputes regarding their likelihood, causes and consequences - in essence, how they may be managed. This paper aims to critically review the theory and literature regarding cultures and to examine their relevance to selection of multi-national project participants, management of conflict and resulting outcomes for project performance and participant satisfaction. Of particular note are aspects of cultural compatibility/cultural distance for both selection of project participants and resultant performance.published_or_final_versio

Building an Ethical Small Group (Chapter 9 of Meeting the Ethical Challenges of Leadership)

This chapter examines ethical leadership in the small-group context. To help create groups that brighten rather than darken the lives of participants, leaders must foster individual ethical accountability among group members, ensure ethical group interaction, avoid moral pitfalls, and establish ethical relationships with other groups. In his metaphor of the leader\u27s light or shadow, Parker Palmer emphasizes that leaders shape the settings or contexts around them. According to Palmer, leaders are people who have an unusual degree of power to create the conditions under which other people must live and move and have their being, conditions that can either be as illuminating as heaven or as shadowy as hell. 1 In this final section of the text, I\u27ll describe some of the ways we can create conditions that illuminate the lives of followers in small-group, organizational, global, and crisis settings. Shedding light means both resisting and exerting influence. We must fend off pressures to engage in unethical behavior while actively seeking to create healthier moral environments

Paradoxical leadership and organizational support in the new normal era: An experimental vignette study virtual team collective efficacy

Implementation of Working from Home (WFH) or hybrid (WFH and Work from Office) during the COVID-19 pandemic has been known to remain until the end of the pandemic. In spite of that, the implementation of WFH or Hybrid is known to have an impact on interfering with the team functionality that works virtually at the company. Therefore, there needs to be an effort to increase the virtual team’s collective efficacy (VTCE) when collaborating virtually. One of the antecedents that could increase the VTCE is Paradoxical Leadership Behavior (PLB), a leadership style that could combine two competing behaviors into one new behavior, in this case combining the roles of agentic and communal leadership as a whole. Additionally, the Perceived Organizational Support (POS) is an employee’s perception of the organization's effort in increasing welfare and providing support at work are also antecedents from VTCE. Both antecedents are required to be further examined by utilizing vignette experiment 2 (high vs low PLB) x 2 (high vs low POS) between-subject design on 256 employees conducting WFH or hybrid. Utilizing 2 x 2 ANOVA Factorial, a significant effect was revealed from PLB and POS on VTCE. The implication of this research showed that there needs to be an implementation of PLB and post-pandemic organization support to increase the VTCE for the team when conducting WFH or hybrid

An investigation into the influence of trust on the sharing of practical knowledge in technology producing small to medium enterprises (smes).

This study that uses ethnographic research methods explores how trust influences the sharing of practical knowledge in technology producing SMEs. More specifically, this project investigates how trust behaviours influence the sharing of various types of tacit and explicit practical knowledge. Currently, practice theory research recommends how practical knowledge can be shared however, efforts to share practical knowledge generally fail due to trust not been developed adequately in the collaborative relationships formed by companies. This research aims to inform practice theory of how SMEs can develop collaborative relationships more effectively. To succeed, these companies are particularly dependent on collaborative working as a source for growth and competitive advantage. This investigation uses a qualitative research methodology, which employs a multiple case study approach where semi-structured interviews have been conducted with six engineers, three of whom work in large companies and three in SMEs. Observations were also conducted for one case study. These participants work at various levels and the companies themselves are based in a variety of geographic locations across the UK. Based on the use of a thematic analysis on the interview data it was possible to characterise a practical knowledge sharing culture. In addition, the research outlines the specific perceptions and experiences of participants who adopted trust based strategies for sharing practical knowledge over the life of a project. By applying a method devised in this research called narrative mapping, it was possible to identify patterns between trust behaviours and types of practical knowledge shared from participants’ anecdotes. As the interviewees’ anecdotes relate to specific relationship phases over a project life cycle, the research was able to build up a picture of how trust develops over the life stages of a project. The findings provide a novel way of helping SMEs to develop effective collaborative relationships and associated working practices and inform future trust and practice theory research

Resilience in projects: definition, dimensions, antecedents and consequences

Disruptions can cause projects to fail. Within the project management literature, approaches to managing disruptions consist of uncertainty, risk, opportunity, change, and crisis management. These approaches focus on developing strategies to manage perceived threats and also work towards predicting risk, therefore, reducing vulnerability. This vulnerability-reduction only focus is limiting because it takes the focus away from the development of a general capacity for readiness and for responding to uncertain situations. A resiliency approach enables a simultaneous focus on vulnerability reduction, readiness and response and thus ensures recovery. Given the context and discipline specific nature of the resilience concept, and the little or no attention in projects, this thesis conceptualises resilience in projects. This conceptualisation is to enable the identification of factors to consider and indicators to ensure overall project recovery, through the identification of dimensions and antecedents of resilience respectively. The aim of this study therefore, is to develop a framework to conceptualise resilience in projects. To achieve this aim, three case studies, namely; building, civil engineering and engineering construction projects were investigated. Within each case study, the critical incident technique was employed to identify disruptions and their management through direct observations of human activities, narration of critical incidents and review of documents on disruption. Following this, a comparative analysis and synthesis of the case studies was carried out and findings revealed definition, dimensions, antecedents and consequences of resilience in projects. Specifically, resilience in projects is defined as; the capability of a project to respond to, prepare for and reduce the impact of disruption caused by the drifting environment and project complexity. The dimensions of resilience are; proactivity, coping ability, flexibility and persistence. Proactivity can be defined as an anticipatory capability that the project takes to influence their endeavours whilst coping ability can be defined as the capability to manage and deal with stress caused by disruptions within the projects. Furthermore, flexibility can be defined as the capability of a project to manage disruption by allowing change but ultimately making sure that the aim is maintained and persistence is the capability to continue despite difficult situations. Several antecedents of these dimensions of resilience are identified. For proactivity these include contract, training, monitoring, contingency and experience. For coping ability these include the contract, training, contingency and experience. For flexibility these include open-mindedness, planning, continual monitoring and continual identification of ideas and for persistence these include continual monitoring, planning and negotiation. Also, the consequence of resilience in projects is recovery through response, readiness and vulnerability reduction. This conceptualisation of resilience is then synthesised into a validated framework for resilience in projects. Theoretically, this research provides definition, dimensions, antecedents and consequence for resilience in projects and a theoretical starting point for the concept of resilience in projects. The significance of this research to practice is the identification and development of a more holistic perspective of managing disruptions in projects through the identified dimensions, antecedents and consequences. These dimensions, antecedents and consequences provide clarity for the roles of project managers and team members in managing disruptions and thus, expand the eleventh knowledge area; project risk management, of the Project Management Book of Knowledge (PMBOK). In addition, the dimensions, antecedents and consequences of resilience in projects contribute to the curriculum development in project management and thus, provide factors and indicators that project managers require in managing disruptions

From social context and resilience to performance through job satisfaction: A multilevel study over time

Giving the crucial role of organizational context in shaping individual attitudes and behaviors at work, in this research we studied the effects of collective work-unit Perceptions of Social Context (PoSC) on individual work resilience and two key individual outcomes: job satisfaction and job performance as rated by the supervisor. We theorized that collective PoSC act as antecedents of individual variables, and that individual job satisfaction mediates the relationship between collective PoSC and job performance, and between work resilience and job performance over time. A sample of 305 white-collar employees, clustered in 67 work-units, participated in the study. Hierarchical linear modeling highlighted that collective PoSC are significant related to individual work resilience. Moreover, results showed that individual job satisfaction fully mediates the relationship between collective PoSC and individual job performance and the relationship between individual work resilience and individual job performance. At a practical level, results suggest that interventions on collective PoSC may increase work resilience, job satisfaction and job performance over time at the individual level