Multicultural workforce is a common scenario in current dynamic business worlds

which resulted from globalization. The forces of globalization have pressure the managers to

work across borders to conduct businesses. Henceforth, lead to a diverse nationality and

culture in the workplace. Having heterogeneous team provides variety of perspective and

experiences that increase in creativity, innovation and flexibility (Staples and Zhao, 2006).

Even so, cultural differences can interfere in the processes of projects in current multicultural

global business community. Carte and Chidambaram (2004) suggested that reductive

capabilities of collaborative technologies are useful for newly-formed heterogeneous teams to

avoid the negative effects associated with diversity such as communication difficulties,

misunderstandings, decreased cohesion and increased conflict. Therefore, global managers

need to be equipped with knowledge and skills to deal with cross-cultural and virtual

concerns.

Staples and Zhao (2006) proposed that newly-formed heterogeneous team should

work virtually until team identity has been established but facilitating geographically

dispersed team member is proven to be a challenging task. Before starting any international

project with the virtual team, it is advisable to review the work policies agreement. To create

a smooth progress between all team members, a global manager has to act as communication

mediator to reduce conflicts. Aside from clarifying task and processes to each member, it is

wise to commit to communication charter to avoid misusage of communication technologies.

A charter forms a guideline and set of behavior when participating in virtual meetings

including paying attention to conversation and not dominating it, responding to e-mails

within time limit and so on. When members adhere to a specific guideline, it can avoid

miscommunication in the process of relaying information between members who are in

different remote location. This will eventually set up rhythm and pace in working virtually

with the team so that members would not get disconnected while keeping up with regular

work routine. However, if all the members working in different time zone, a regular rotation

of meeting time should be established to spread the workload equally (Watkins, 2013). When

agreement has been reach, it is easier to foster trust between all the members.

One important thing that a manager has to consider is task-technology fits because the

efficiency of communication technologies depends on the nature of the task given. It is vital

to take note which communication is best for each situation. Heterogeneous teams should be

working on structured project and contain passive tasks. As proposed by Staples and Zhao

(2006), it is best to use reductive capabilities of collaboration technologies to communicate

between members at the early phase of heterogeneous team’s life for visual anonymity. This

is to avoid creation of in-groups and out-groups that could decrease the team’s performance.

Computer-mediated tool like e-mail is the best for one to have personal communication

whereas online discussion board enables documents to be shared among teams. Both of these

tools will make up for linguistic barrier occur in the process of relaying information. E-mail

gives respondent time to think and review it before replying to sender. Also, the auto-correct

function in the e-mail helps those who are not proficient in the language used. To illustrate, a

German employee thinks he presents better in his mother tongue language than English.

However, because of Hofstede’s uncertainty avoidance dimension, he decided not to

participate in discussion in English even when he has good input just to avoid the

misunderstanding (Kadocnikova, 2012). According to Hofstede (2011), people in high

uncertainty avoidance culture are not comfortable to be in the situation that they are not

familiar with. For this reason, it is best to use asynchronous computer-mediated tools like e-

mail to create an environment where non-native speaker can convey information confidently

to make the most out of their skills. Furthermore, negative impact associated with

intercultural non-verbal misunderstanding is reduced with asynchronous computer-mediated

tool. For example, members from polychromic cultures like French and Portugese incline to

arrive late to a meeting (Shachaf, 2005). Such behavior could create tension between team

members who are from monochromic cultures who value time.

Additionally, manager also needs to consider the availability of technology in certain

country. In this case, organizational support is crucial to enable collaborative work between

members. Organizational should invest in software where it enables members to have their

own virtual office. This will create a sense of belonging to the members. For instance,

groupware is software that is designed for sharing information between people that involved

in common task. It offers range of tools including Intranet, discussion forum, web page, e-

mails and so on (Nataatmadja and Dyson, 2005). The proper use of information

communication technology enable equal participation between members as it eliminates

immediate saliency of surface-level diversity. With limited identification and immediate

feedback, each member can participate equally and their input will be judge by merit and not

personal judgment. Even if some of the members practice collectivist or individualism

culture, it does not matter if the visual anonymity exists. For instance, most Asian is

collectivist by nature like Japanese and Chinese. They listen to top authority order without

being able to reject it (Vinaja, 2003). Henceforth, the selection of communication tools plays

significant roles when working with heterogeneous team.

All in all, technologies communication cannot ensure the smooth performance of the

virtual team but rather as tools that compensate the weakness of virtual team. It is important

to note that none of the communication technologies is perfect for all situations. For this

reason, a selection of communication tools should be provided. Employees should be given

the privilege to choose which communication tools they are comfortable working with. By

using communication tools effectively and appreciating diversity through nurturing culture

competence will enable team members to develop their unique talents. Consequently, this

will assist in the creation of effective and competitive virtual teams.