Intercultural team maturity model: Unity, diversity, capability

Prabhakar, Guru Prakash; Walker, Sandra

Abstract

“I claim that human mind or human society is not divided into watertight compartments called social, political and religious. All act and react upon one another.”, Mahatma Gandhi.
When project team members of diverse cultures act and react together they frequently under-perform, whereas teams enjoying an appropriate cultural analysis, could be more effective. Earlier studies took a relativist, descriptive approach to compare individual’s different cultures.
However, differentiation based on a team member’s personal ability to culturally adapt, the inherent capacity to be fl exible in a multicultural team, could perhaps be a superior method of analysis. This research examines the ability of a team member to adapt to complex intercultural project
environments, principally using the measure of ‘Openness’ from The Big Five personality traits, to formulate a proposed intercultural maturity model. This could heighten awareness of situational leadership, using individual intercultural team member maturity as a tool towards optimal project success

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: Jan 1, 2006
• Journal: Project Perspectives
• Print ISSN: 1455-4178
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 28
• Pages: 70-73
• Keywords: project, teams
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/1045091
• Publisher URL: http://www.ipma.ch/Documents/Project_Perspectives_2006.pdf