Comparing managerial work practices and values in nationally homogenous versus heterogeneous groups : examining German, British and French work teams

• Main Author: Muller-Wodarg, Wilderich K. D.
• Published: London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London) 1994
• Subjects: 658.04
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.645431

The ever increasing internationalization of company activities and the expanding use of mixed-nationality teams in organizations highlight the need for intercultural management competence. The task of this project is therefore to examine the impact of the international element within management teams: are teams made up of two or more nationalities different from corresponding nationally homogeneous teams in term of decision-making, co-operation, mutual exchange of information, work satisfaction in the company, skill utilization, conflicts and standardization (of products, tasks, goals, corporate identity and culture). The existing cross-national management literature cannot answer this question adequately and there is a need for research examining the face-to-face interaction of different national management styles. This project conducted an empirical examination of nationally heterogeneous teams made up of French, British and/or German managers and contrasted them with nationally homogeneous French, British and German teams. Firstly it presents significant differences between the French, British and German management styles and in this respect contributes to previous cross-national management literature. Secondly, it demonstrates how nationally heterogeneous management teams are different from nationally homogeneous ones, by exploring a route, which we called Social Cross-National Management. This approach was achieved by going to the operational interface of management teams and designing a questionnaire which required them to make two distinct judgments about two modes of action. A non-traditional principal component analysis was conducted, which individually scored teams along benchmarks like satisfaction with the work, team effectiveness, views about increased participation and the opportunities to use competence. The main results are that the mixed nationality element (significantly) decreases skill utilization, exchange of information and team effectiveness, that it significantly increases dysfunctional results, that it negatively affects satisfaction with participation, satisfaction with the work and satisfaction within the team and finally that conflicts do not result significantly more often from the mixed nationality element. Other results are indecisive or non-significant.