Cross-cultural Teams and Related Issues of Global Management

The shift to the business unit structure, however, has not diminished the need to coordinate within functional or geographic areas. In addition, large global accounts have often required a single point of contact within the global firm. In these cases, cross business unit coordination becomes crucial in areas such as research, new product development, and managing the firm's identity. Often this is done by cross-cultural teams. Consequently, there is a need to determine how cross-cultural teams can work effectively with a firm's strategic intent.

The Center for Global Business Studies, in conjunction with a distinguished cross section of global business leaders, will benchmark and compare the studied firms' operations and will identify what successful global companies are doing in this area. The Center has completed the interviewing of four global teams at Compaq and is in the process of interviewing teams from Celanese AG. The Center is hopeful of attracting a few more companies to participate in this study. Once the study of the teams of all the participating companies has been completed, the Center will present its findings.