ABSTRACT
Not too long ago, the idea of working with global teams was limited to a few companies that could afford them. However, many things have changed in the way people communicate in the past ten years. Nowadays, global teams are gaining popularity among many industries, and it is common to see groups of people working across multiple cultures. Finding best practices for virtual team collaboration and building trust is even more important than ever before. The objective of the research is to explore the Human-Computer Interaction factors in virtual teams by searching how multicultural influences change the dynamics of virtual teams when dealing with trust.
KEYWORDS
Social Software, Articulation Work, Virtual Teams, Cultural models
LITERATURE REVIEW
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics in 2016, the projected growth of remote workers was estimated to increase to 105.4 million by 2020, and evidence suggest that virtual work environments are becoming a viable alternative to traditional forms of collaboration [4]. Therefore, it is essential to learn more about the implications in international settings as well. Because working seamlessly with employees from different countries and time zones has been testing the limitations of technology, it is are essential to build effective teams. Global teams are also changing the leadership process and have put in question traditional leadership styles [4] as devices are used for both business and pleasure and they could be tools of “extensification” (work and non-work time) [2, 3].
Therefore, the dynamics of teams change from a traditional leadership style to one of trust. In addition to leadership changes, cultural models such as Hofstede’s and the “Mosaic” frameworks by Chao and Moon (2005) are important to take under consideration to build mutual understanding on different multicultural teams. Even more, communication is an essential aspect of building trust and collaboration across teams. However, technology seems inadequate, and collaboration tools are not yet customized to such teams. The idea that group values seem more important than cultural values when building trust with virtual teams is a concept that needs further analysis.
MUTUAL UNDERSTANDING
Building trust is essential to teams because coworkers who do not trust each other can’t function well in a physical workplace. When working in virtual environments, employees that haven’t met in person before can find building trust more challenging than those who have met in person. However, biologist believes that we are hardwired to distrust everyone except our family members [24]. This reason is explained due to family behavioral norms and mental frames as to what is right and wrong [23]. Because of this, family is people’s first point of reference and the first bounded group that individuals encounter and associate with initially [23]. Consequently, it is natural to distrust unfamiliar people.
BUILDING TRUST
Building acceptance is vital to encourage trust. In Earlay’s 2006 study, he mentioned that “identity work” is when individuals select cultural content and adapt to their environments [23]. Thus, sharing a common work identity among culturally diverse teams—no matter their cultural nationality, ethnicity, gender, or age—is possible because people can share one common identity in a team environment [22]. Moreover, there is a high or low cultural openness in group members. For example, a team member who shows high intellectual openness is more likely to work alongside other team members who exhibit high work-related competence rather than those with low intellectual openness [14]. In other words, people with the same interests and skills are more likely to share a collective identity.
Hence, building bridges between distrust and acceptance is an essential aspect of building trust. Consequently, initiating with the benefit of the doubt allows the team to learn from each other and share the same feeling that “we’re in the same boat together” and recognition is the ultimate goal for everyone in the team [24]. Therefore, teams need to learn from each other’s skills and build interpersonal trust. Sirkka L. Javenpaa, and Dorothy E, mentioned in their research that “teams lacking in trust tended to have unpredictable communication patterns” [25]. A high-trust team regularly communicates, and members contribute to the team equally. The rotation of power is also significant as leaders in virtual teams play the role of a “mentor” and allow employees to lead stages of the project [24].For that reason, distrust and acceptance are worth investigating further. The hypothesis of this research is based on the idea that group values are more meaningful compared to cultural identity when building trust in virtual teams.
BUILDING TRUST
Two cultural frameworks were used for this research: Hofstede and Chao and Moon’s; they are outlined in the following sections.
Hofstede’s Uncertainty Avoidance
Hofstede’s cultural models stated that “any one person is a member of several groups, e.g., nuclear family, extended family, village, region, club, political organization, religion, country or company.” [26]. According to Hofstede, there is more trust in members of the same group, and depending on the group culture, people are more or less likely to be flexible in group memberships. [26, 5]. Therefore, Uncertainty Avoidance was the most worthy of investigation out of the five cultural models.
For example, Hofstede’s research on modeling culture in trade stated that Uncertainty Avoidance plays a role in trust or distrust between two business partners [26]. “An uncertainty avoiding trader does not expect the rules to be broken a will trust unless he is dealing with a stranger. A new partner will be distrusted until sufficient evidence for the contrary has been found. In uncertainty tolerant societies, the other dimensions of culture determine the level of trust. The rules and contracts do not have a value per se for the uncertainty tolerant.” [26]. Furthermore, in both uncertainty avoidance and uncertainty tolerant societies, traders prefer to deal with familiar relations because they already have past experiences. Therefore, future study is needed to learn more about the relationships between Uncertainty Avoidance and high or low cultural openness.When trading, the primary goal is the execution of transactions, an exchange of goods or money. These transactions are based on a contract that could have special conditions; however, contracting is not necessarily the main interest. Figure 2 explains the process of traders and the thought process to avoid risk [26].
Chao and Moon’s Mosaic Framework
Even though Hofstede’s cultural models are useful, it is not clear on multiple cultural dimensions because identifying behaviors based on nationality is highly controversial [5]. However, “Mosaic” framework proposed by Chao and Moon in 2005 is a flexible framework that shows how individuals perceive their own cultural identity and how they appeal from multiple cultural facets in a given social setting. For example, in the research Chao and Moon stated “When individuals become experts in more than one culture, their social information processing is channeled through the lenses of more than one culture, and their interpretive biases could be pushed in the direction of one or the other culture by the presence of cultural cues in the immediate environment” [23]. The adaptation of multiple levels of a culture, such as a group, nationality, and cultural values, shape how people manage various cultural values and identities [1].
For example, in the research conducted by Chao and Moon, the story of a participant is a clear example of how people modify their values based on the group in which they are working. They presented the story of Nadia, an Iranian businesswoman who was entering a room to negotiate with potential clients from Germany. When the clients extended their hands as a gesture of goodwill, she took their hands, but her Iranian colleagues were shocked because it is not traditionally appropriate for Iranian women to touch unfamiliar men. But because she lives in the United States and Europe, she learned how to switch among two cultural values [23]. Nevertheless, individuals are defined by demographic characteristics, as they are more likely to be psychologically similar to one another [21]. In the case of Nadia, she learned from these differences by living in other countries other than Iran, and she has been able switch national values depending on her location and conditions. Figure 3. Explains in detail how the Mosaic framework works.
COMMUNICATIONS ACROSS MULTICULTURAL TEAMS
Virtual environments face unprecedented challenges, such as people working across time zones and organizational boundaries, with limited web communication technologies [3]. With the increase of virtual teams, building trust is challenging because members speak multiple languages, and interpersonal connections are missing [7]. Most technologies used in these settings do not support this level of interpersonal connectivity either. Compared to homogenous teams, culturally diverse teams experience lower trust and cohesion. In some cases, they are less effective when communicating and building higher levels of interpersonal relationships when cultural differences are not adequately resolved [8]. An example of this dilemma is evident when conducting a usability test on medical devices because miscommunication or misunderstandings can cause injury or death. These instances are known as “user error.” This type of error represents a third leading cause of death in the U.S. [9]. These issues usually are subject to recall because devices confuse patients. Consequently, the International Patient Experience Design (I-PXD) incorporates many nations, regions, and cultures when testing these devices to better understand the international context of the design [9]. Similarly, under this context, teams need to avoid misunderstandings at all cost. Teams with cultural context need to define clearly their differences and build bridges of mutual understanding [21].
CONCLUSION AND FUTURE STUDIES
Building an environment of trust with virtual teams is challenging, especially if the team works with international employees. Team leaders should be aware that employees generally do not trust unfamiliar people, and anyone that does not look familiar is subject to distrust. Nonetheless, to build trust people need associations with groups, and group culture is essential to build trust within teams. The research aims to clarify what is more meaningful to build trust in a virtual team. Based on initial observations, there was an assumption that group values are more significant than cultural identity. However, after analyzing the research, it was clear that cultural identity was fundamental to build mutual understanding to learn from people’ values before building group values. Finally, Hofstede’s cultural model represents national identity, but based on the Mosaic framework, people can switch from national values based on their experiences with other cultures and groups. Further research is going to be needed to learn more about the differences between distrust and acceptance and the relationships between Uncertainty Avoidance and high or low cultural openness to better understand national and group values.
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