Challenges in leading cross-cultural teams

Bachelor Thesis from the year 2020 in the subject Business economics - Business Management, Corporate Governance, grade: 1,8, The FOM University of Applied Sciences, Hamburg, course: Challenges in leading cross-cultural teams, language: English, abstract: Teams are staffed with people from different nations, which brings many advantages in terms of achieving the best possible results for customers, who also have different cultural backgrounds. In this thesis, the leadership challenges that arise and are present in cross-cultural teams will be presented, and practical instruments to deal with them will be indicated. One element that affects team performance and defines success is leadership. Yet, leaders influence the team outcome. In this complex environment leaders are challenged through these diverse cultures with new issues and requirements. Gaining further practical insights can help to understand, recognize and reduce these issues to ensure the company's success. The thesis aims to ascertain the challenges of leading a cross-cultural team, as well as which practical instruments are available to deal with them, by conducting three interviews with experts and providing explanations based on theories. Accordingly, this thesis aims to provide some ideas concerning what leaders can expect that they need to solve and the necessary skills when leading a cross-cultural team. Based on the literature, analysis questions will be developed for the expert interviews with a leader, an HR developer and an advisor/coach, based on which the challenges will be found. The subject of this thesis is the leadership of cross-cultural teams and it will focus on the interaction between the leader and team in an organizational environment, e.g. a department or an association for a specific task. Although the specific team variables such as size, composition and gender, virtuality, corporate culture and company structure are not part of this question and will not be considered separately, they nevertheless play a role and thus cannot be ignored. To answer the research question, culture and cross-cultural teams will first be defined, whereby the cultural frameworks of Hofstede and the GLOBE study and team processes will be described. Subsequently, leadership will be defined and considered. The next chapter will explore the method as defined by the literature and the research procedure employed in this thesis as well as the results will be evaluated and discussed. In the final chapter, a conclusion will be reached highlighting challenges