Effects Of Multicultural Team-Building Training On Improved Multicultural Working In Teams

The Importance of Multicultural Working in Teams

Increasing trend of company globalization results in multiple diversity people working under same team and field. Inclusion of workplace diversity fosters mutual respect among the employees and offers more exposures to employees from different cultures. However, problem like psychological barriers and conflicts has been observed due to less interaction among the employees. As opined by Bhagwanji and Vasquez-Colina (2009), multicultural employees can helps their team members to understand the dynamics of their cultures, review the potential area of conflict and promoting team synergy in construction industry. Thus, this CAT is conducted to evaluate whether or not the enhancement of multicultural working in teams through multicultural team-building training is supported by proper scientific evidence.

The point of interest for this CAT is that larger projects are often managed by diverse cultural members, who are from different countries and background (Terry 2007). However, this report focuses on the potential problems of forming multicultural teams so that the employees can be trained properly to work under multicultural teams and environment.

The CAT question that is focused is thus: What is known in the scientific literature about the effects of training interventions designed to improve multicultural working in teams?

Supplementary Questions:

• What is a multicultural team?
• What are the major problem occurred in developing a multicultural team?
• What are the strategies through which the occurred problem due to multicultural team can be overcome?

In order to gain in-depth knowledge of the CAT question, PICOC model is utilized as this framework helps in development of well-built practical questions. The Questions developed using the same framework is as follows:

Population	The employee of the construction projects because they can express the situation of facing problem in working with a person of different background and culture and whether or not the existing training programs is effective to allow them work together as a team.
Intervention	Survey, questionnaire and feedback because respondents share their genuine perception effectiveness of the current training program for multicultural working in teams. They can also share exact problems in communication with other employees that can also be considered as valuable suggestion to implement strategies for developing multicultural team-building training programs (Tabassi et al. 2017).
Comparison	Working with the people of same culture and background with the people of different culture because it will help in understanding the aspects that helps construction project employees to work as a team.
Outcome	Improved multicultural team work because problem identified in the research will help in ideas that can overcome adversity that creates problem in collaborative working of employee belong for different work culture.
Context	Construction projects where greater number of migrants are recruited from different countries because in major construction projects, many migrants are recruited in lesser cost but due to communication gaps, these workers are not able to work collaboratively that affects the productivity of the products (Strnadová et al. 2014).

The main aim of this CAT is to find whether or not the multicultural team-building training enhances the multicultural working in teams; thus, the study materials or research papers that measures the effectiveness of the multicultural team-building training. The inclusion criteria is to select research articles that is published after the year 2000-2017 for the content analysis and 2008-2017 for primary data analysis so that only the recent training techniques can be evaluated that is used for developing multicultural working in teams (Wang, Jiang and Pretorius 2016). Thus:

Inclusion Criteria

1. Date: Research articles that are published between 2000-2017 for the content analysis and 2008-2017 for primary data analysis
2. Language: English Language
3. Type of studies: Empirical studies including both quantitative data and qualitative data  
4. Study Design: Meta Analysis will be considered so that the result found from the empirical studies can be combined with the statistical approach used in other research papers. This will enhance the relevance of the research made on the selected research topic.
5. Measurement: Research based on the (a) concept of multicultural team in the construction industry, (b) multicultural training and management of team and (c) major problems occurred in developing a multicultural team within an organization. These studies will help in identifying the main challenges in training multicultural team so that strategies for multicultural team-building training for enhancing multicultural working in teams can be obtained (Sarhadi 2016).
6. Outcome: Strategies for improved multicultural team work
7. Context: Research studies related to the multicultural team, communication gaps, team works and team-building training

Exclusion Criteria

1. Studies referring to the area of training for developing career opportunity, other human resources activities other than developing multicultural team and diversity management

Initially, the search for different research articles it is found that the cross cultural training is important for building collaborative teams to maximize the positive outcome, overcome the problem of verbal and non-verbal communication to avoid misunderstandings and frustrations, diminish linguistic differences and understand the important of own and other’s culture.

In search for providing the multicultural team building training it is found that it is better to formulate a training team with agreed upon guidelines from all the employees. As per Choudhury (2001), this will help them to understand the work responsibility faster and they can also help the other to follow the same. There is a second approach which is to show visuals presentations as people working in construction industry are not always educated and understand the guidelines and modules presented to them. Thus, it is better to give training by showing evidences in audio and visuals (Congden, Matveev and Desplaces 2009). Personal phase like shared meal will also help the employee to learn about the culture of others and develop an effective interpersonal relation among them.

Potential Problems of Forming Multicultural Teams

In order to conduct this CAT, Business Source Complete from EBSCO is selected. The following are the generic search filters in order to find resources based on the CAT question:

1. Scholarly journals, peer-reviewed
2. Research articles that are published between 2000-2017 for the content analysis and 2008-2017 for primary data analysis
3. Articles written in English language
4. Some keywords for completing the search are- Employee training and development, multicultural training, team building and multi-cultural work environment in the construction industry.

Business Source Complete from EBSCO
Search Terms	Business Source Complete from EBSCO
Employee training and development	40
Multicultural training	22
Team building	31
Multi-cultural work environment in the construction industry	25

Since the aim of the CAT is to find the effects of training interventions designed to improve multicultural working in teams, the initial search was multicultural team training. Thus, searching with the keyword “team-building training” from the published dates between 2000- 2017, shows the search for healthcare industry and leadership improvement training. Thus, the search keyword is modified to “multi-cultural work environment training” to narrow down the number of articles to 25.

Moreover influenced by Santoso (2009), in order to make the search more accurate, the abstract of each of the founded articles was studied. Particularly for this CAT question, the result shows that conflict occur due to the multicultural employee status but other research articles based on the multicultural training shows that those training allows every employee to reduce the conflict among them and also improves the workplace relationships between them. Influenced from the views of Connaughton and Shuffler (2007), it can be opined that since, team building training is also applicable for healthcare industry and training to develop leadership in job, the number of articles reduces to 257 to 138.

Author Name and Year of publication	Research design	Sample size and population	Main findings	Effect size	Limitations	level of trustworthiness
Madera, J.M., Neal, J.A. and Dawson, M., 2011	Primary survey and quantitative data analysis	96 Participants	Perspective-taking training is more effective in raising the positive attitude towards non-English speaking people	Large Sized effect	Limited relevance to the research question based on the perspective-taking training and empathy generated from the given strategy	A
Ochieng, E.G. and Price, A.D.F., 2010	Primary data through interview and observational study	20 project manager from Kenya and UK	It is important to develop leadership so as to ensure effective cross cultural collectivism, trust, communication and empathy (Zemliansky 2012)	Medium Sized effect	This research is based on one intervention that is leadership for implemented cross cultural aspects on construction industry	A
Tabassi, A.A., Bryde, D.J., Abdullah, A. and Argyropoulou, M., 2017	Primary survey and quantitative data analysis	126 team leaders and supervisors and 378 member	The findings show that multicultural training diminishes the conflict due to cultural difference from comparative style, accommodating style, avoiding style and compromising style. The findings also represents that conflict management styles, team coordination and team performance should be focused in training  sessions n order to lowers the changes of cultural disputes among the employees	Large Sized effect	This study is focused on the conflict which is raised due to the difference in the culture and tradition	AA
Congden, S.W., Matveev, A.V. and Desplaces, D.E., 2009	Primary data analysis and correlation analysis  on for multicultural team performance  and cross-cultural communication competence dimensions	71 American and 91 German respondents	The research result shows that the cross cultural communication majorly comprised of development of interpersonal skills, team effectiveness, cultural uncertainty and  cultural empathy	Medium Sized effect	This research based on the communication aspects between Germans and Americans	C

The critical assessment of the all selected research articles, only few of them are selected. The pares that are selected is based on their methodological approaches and the selection criteria that is used to form result evaluation assessments like- cultural diversity, cultural competence during training, awareness of one’s own values along with the biasness, awareness of the client’s worldview and culturally appropriate intervention strategies. Another article shows the content analysis from 178 articles based on diversity training articles and includes categories like-diversity training context, diversity training design, trainee characteristics and training outcome (Diana Bebenova – Nikolova 2014). The research therefore qualified as level A or AA, due to the fact that the selected articles also focus on training intervention. Another reason for the appropriateness of the selected articles is that it illustrates multicultural training comparison between campuses and workplace (Rentsch et al. 2014). Some of the articles are excluded based on the industry on which the research has been conducted. These studies are also have a small impact as aim is to underscore the need for the profession for developing standards for making people multi-culturally competent with casual observation.

Population, Intervention, Comparison, Outcome, and Context (PICOC) Framework

In most of the article the common thing that is found is the definition of the multicultural which is the collaboration of several people from different cultural and traditional background within a team. Multicultural is different from the term cross-culture as the later represents comparison between two or more culture. In some of the research articles, Hofstede culture is indicated to understand the difference among two nations (Goodman 2012). The research articles based on the construction industry shows that they managers of the overseas construction projects need to understand the international context and assess the situation from different cultural perspectives. This will help the managers to identify the aspects based on which the training intervention can be provided for better development of the interpersonal relationship among them. 14 articles show that communication barrier is a major issue in a multicultural environment due to which productivity of the employee may get hampered. The solution is found from other research papers, where it is mentioned that people working in the construction projects often are uneducated and hence it is better to present them training using audio and visual training materials. However, since being familiar with cultural issues allows empowerment in requisition of the knowledge that improves the efficiency of managing project teams with multicultural people, it is better to develop interpersonal relationship between the employees (Kassar, Rouhana and Lythreatis 2015). Another research article shows that perception training help team member to understand the differences and importance of both the culture and hence develop the sensation through which the feeling of working collaboratively enhances.

Conclusion 

Thus, it is found that sharing individual concerns and agreed upon guideline helps the people from different background to work together in projects. The training interventions should be focused more on the development of skills in order to make isomorphic attributions, leadership assistance for formulating the appropriate behavior of the host cultural people, culture awareness training, interaction training, language training, didactic training and experimental training for giving the expatriate to practice situations through which they can understand the host culture (Kealey et al. 2005). However, studies also shows that the training hours should not be restricted to few hours or some days as it is not enough for overcoming the stigma employees develop while working with different culture people.

Sources only from the EBSCO database has been considered as a result some other resources have not been targeted in order to complete this research. In addition to that, this assessment focused more on the A or AA level research journal and articles and hence mostly the research papers with primary data observations has been considered.

Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria for Literature Review

Another limitation of this CAT is some of the papers are based on hundreds number of employees, some are based on interview methods and some based on critical research articles reviews (Kroken 2007). Again, from the opinion of Presbitero and Toledano (2017), it is evident that each research procedure has different methods and purpose and often shows result through different perspective and biasness. Thus, no single format of research data analysis technique has been conducted in order to answer the developed CAT questions.

Third limitation is that some articles are not based on construction industry. Since, this CAT is based on developing the multicultural working in teams, articles with suggestions to improve multicultural environment is mainly highlighted (Ochieng and Price 2010).

Thus, it can be said that in making the employee from different background collaboratively with each other, communication and perception understanding is the major aspects that should be focused in the training interventions. Management should assess the team members by making effective interactions and understands the basic needs and working expectations (Madera, Neal and Dawson 2011). This will help them to prepare a set of guidelines that is agreed by all the employees. The management also emphasizes with new methods to deal with prejudice so that conflict among the people from different culture can be diminished.

The CAT question can also be better addressed if research papers by other research scholars could be based on the employees working in the construction sites. The result can be better accomplished if interview from the employee can be conducted. In this way, it is easier for the management people to understand their demands and the problem they face to work in a same project with people, who are incompetent to understand their language and have cultural biasness (Midgett, Hausheer and Doumas 2016). Moreover, it is also recommended that the management people need to establish some success criteria that will help them to assess whether or not the multicultural team building training they have developed is effective in diminishing the conflict, improve the communication and enhance the productivity of the employee of different cultural background in the same project.

References

Bhagwanji, Y. & Vasquez-Colina, M.D. 2009, “An Innovative Cross-Cultural In-Service Training Model: Findings from a Multi-Year Project”, Journal of International Special Needs Education, vol. 12, pp. 11.

Choudhury, I. 2001, “Cross-Cultural Training of Project Personnel Implementation of International Construction Projects by U.S. Contractors”, Journal of Construction Education, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 20.

Multicultural Training Strategies and Techniques

Congden, S.W., Matveev, A.V. and Desplaces, D.E., 2009. Cross-cultural communication and multicultural team performance: a German and American comparison. Journal of Comparative International Management, 12(2).

Connaughton, S.L. & Shuffler, M. 2007, “Multinational and Multicultural Distributed Teams: A Review and Future Agenda”, Small Group Research, vol. 38, no. 3, pp. 387-412.

Diana Bebenova – Nikolova 2014, “Intercultural Competence – Key Competence of Multicultural Teams”, Journal of Danubian Studies and Research, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 177-185.

Goodman, N. 2012, “Training for cultural competence”, Industrial and Commercial Training, vol. 44, no. 1, pp. 47-50.

Kassar, A.N., Rouhana, A. and Lythreatis, S., 2015. Cross-cultural training: its effects on the satisfaction and turnover of expatriate employees. SAM Advanced Management Journal, 80(4), p.4.

Kealey, D.J., Protheroe, D.R., MacDonald, D. & Vulpe, T. 2005, “Re-examining the role of training in contributing to international project success: A literature review and an outline of a new model training program”, International Journal of Intercultural Relations, vol. 29, no. 3, pp. 289-316.

Kroken, P. 2007, “Building a strong team: training for success”, Radiology management, vol. 29, no. 1, pp. 31.

Madera, J.M., Neal, J.A. and Dawson, M., 2011. A strategy for diversity training: Focusing on empathy in the workplace. Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research, 35(4), pp.469-487.

Midgett, A., Hausheer, R. & Doumas, D.M. 2016, “Training Counseling Students to Develop Group Leadership Self-Efficacy and Multicultural Competence through Service Learning”, Journal for Specialists in Group Work, vol. 41, no. 3, pp. 262.

Ochieng, E.G. and Price, A.D.F., 2010. Managing cross-cultural communication in multicultural construction project teams: The case of Kenya and UK. International Journal of Project Management, 28(5), pp.449-460.

Presbitero, A. & Toledano, L.S. 2017, “Global team members’ performance and the roles of cross-cultural training, cultural intelligence, and contact intensity: the case of global teams in IT offshoring sector”, The International Journal of Human Resource Management, , pp. 1-21.

Rentsch, J.R., Delise, L.A., Mello, A.L. & Staniewicz, M.J. 2014, “The Integrative Team Knowledge Building Training Strategy in Distributed Problem-Solving Teams”, Small Group Research, vol. 45, no. 5, pp. 568-591.

Santoso, D.S. 2009, “The construction site as a multicultural workplace: a perspective of minority migrant workers in Brunei”, Construction Management and Economics, vol. 27, no. 6, pp. 529-537.

Sarhadi, M. 2016, “Comparing Communication Style within Project Teams of three Project-oriented Organizations in Iran”, Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences, vol. 226, pp. 226-235.

Strnadová, I., Cumming, T.M., Knox, M., Parmenter, T. & Welcome to Our Class Research Group 2014, “Building an Inclusive Research Team: The Importance of Team Building and Skills Training”, Journal of Applied Research in Intellectual Disabilities, vol. 27, no. 1, pp. 13-22.

Tabassi, A.A., Bryde, D.J., Abdullah, A. and Argyropoulou, M., 2017. Conflict Management Style of Team Leaders in Multi-Cultural Work Environment in the Construction Industry. Procedia Computer Science, 121, pp.41-46.

Terry, J. 2007, “New techniques for training and motivating your company’s multicultural management team”, Employment Relations Today, vol. 34, no. 1, pp. 37-45.

Wang, N., Jiang, D. & Pretorius, L. 2016, “Conflict-resolving behaviour of project managers in international projects: A culture-based comparative study”, Technology in Society, vol. 47, pp. 140-147.

Zemliansky, P. 2012, “Achieving Experiential Cross-cultural Training Through a Virtual Teams Project”, IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication, vol. 55, no. 3, pp. 275-286.