Issues Faced by Multicultural Teams in Australian Advertisement Firms
Simara Private Company limited had been a renowned name in the field of advertisement in Australia. Starting from local companies to multinational companies, the organization has been serving them all for a number of decades. However, the company is now on an expanding phase and therefore they are trying their best to collate a team with people from various backgrounds to help them with their organizational objective. With lucrative offers provided by the human resource department, employees from different nations got their placements in the company and thereby helped in forming a multi-cultured team. However, the organizations failed miserably in developing productivity of the multi-cultured team.
Kin Lee was one of the new joiner in the diver team. She had joined the team as junior editor. She was a fresh candidate and was not much accustomed to organizational behaviors. It was seen that most of the employees being from Australia, she felt quite alone even while working in the group. She could not talk effectively with the teammates and her English was broken. She was more comfortable with her native language but no one understood Chinese in the firm. She could not express properly and therefore she often feel frustrated. When interview was conducted of her, she stated,
“I feel humiliated. They make fun of my broken English. I had tried to make them understand my issue. For some moments, they take me seriously. In the next moment, they look at me and start giggling secretly. I cannot understand what is wrong with me. Sometimes I feel they smile over my looks, sometimes I feel they smile over my accent. I feel like running away”
A very disrespectful incident took place that had affected another employee who had come from Japan. Aiki Hamamoto was a girl who had come from Japan and had been experienced for about four years in the field of advertisements. It was seen that often her names was wrongly pronounced and employees made fun of her. The last day, she felt humiliated when she heard disgraceful comments from her team members.
“From the very first day, the employees tried to avoid me and never came up to me for talking. I felt left out in the team. That day, one of the Australian employees told me casually whether I was the sister of Kim. I felt not only a sense of taunt in his tone but was also disgusted to know that they have no idea about two distinct nations of China and Japan. I felt disrespected. How can I work in an environment where people do not respect my identity?”
Importance of Cultural Intelligence in Effective Teamwork
Such incidences were becoming common in the multicultural team that was affecting the morale of the team members. They were feeling low and could not gain confidence. People coming from the south East Asian countries were not treated properly. The team leader who was an Australian had no knowledge of their cultures. The team leader arranged for a team dinner to discuss the issues that the team members were having. However, the biasness of the team leaders and certain members of the team did not make the entire meeting successful. The team leader requested one of a south Asian Muslim team member about not the reason of his having chicken and pork. He was very unaware of the fact that their cultural traditions do not allow them to have chicken anywhere as they prefer halal chicken. The team member was severely upset and she immediately left the team dinner. Not only that, biasness was observed among the team members. The Australians used to stick together and never communicated with any members of other backgrounds. They had certain stereotypes for all the other cultures that prevented them in communicating with them effectively. The team leader was heard saying,
“I do not know why Asians are so laid back. They always wait for me to arrange work for them. They do not take initiatives. They are always waiting for permission that delays the entire work. They are slow receivers and less active on the work front. I do not understand what they want to do. However, after detailing them the activities, they complete them successfully. So why do they have the habit of waiting for permission?”
Large numbers of issues were found in the workplace, which was affecting the working climate of the new team. Tensions and stress were constant among the team members. The team members could not believe in each other and had negative feelings for each other. They did not respect each other and therefore proper relationships were not developed. Many of the members were found to be emotionally low because of the continuous stereotypes they were facing. The team member did not care the cultural traditions, preferences and inhibition. All these together affected the coordinated working of the team members. Moreover, it was also seen that the members were not aware of the cultural traditions of other members. Therefore, it effected the self esteem and self respect of the individuals. They no longer felt them included in the organizational culture. For all these reason effective teamwork had been affected and therefore productivity was too low. Such low productivity affected the organizational goal of expansion of the company globally. The main aim of developing a multicultural team to increas innovations and creativity in work and advertisement planning marred entirely.
Leadership in Multicultural Environments
Cultural intelligence refers to the ability of individuals in a culturally diverse team to relate with different culturally diverse situations and thereby work effectively with them. It involves the important components called the cultural awareness and cultural sensitivity (Ang and VanDyne 2015). The individuals who have higher levels of cultural intelligence can adapt to different culturally adverse situations and accomplish goals in a respectful and effective way irrespective of the cultural context (Zakaria 2017). If the Australian members of the team had better cultural intelligence, they could have gathered information about the other cultures, their preferences and their inhibitions. These would have enabled them to work according to the different positive as well as compassionate ways with the other members coming from different members. The members had no idea about the differences in cultures as well two distinct nations of Japan and China. This showed that they have no advanced knowledge about the traditions, nationalities, corporate culture as well as different disciplines that had the strength to affect the business (Rice and Matthews 2015). Cultural awareness would have helped the team leaders as well as the Australians members to learn about the food and diet style of the different castes of Asian. Moreover, it was noticed that they also do not have idea about the business cultures followed in other nations. In most of the Asian countries, employees respect authority that is an integral part of their business. They mainly follow the trend of seeking permission and consent in their business communication and activities (Moran, Abramson and Moran 2014). The Australian members, who believed in taking personal initiatives and come up with suggestions, did not know this style of the Asians. The later believes in developing friendly interaction among the different members irrespective of their position. Therefore, the Australians were culturally unaware of the business etiquettes of the Asians and criticized them severely. They also did not have cultural sensitivity and mocked with the Japanese and Chinese members as their appearance seemed similar to them. This also affected their self-respect for which they became emotionally unstable and could not provide the best output. If culturally competent practices had been ensured, there would have been better rapport between different members (Jennifer and Raman 2015). This had increased the productivity.
Leadership in multicultural environments is essential in managing and leading the team effectively so that everyone can achieve their respective goals properly. The most important aspect that should have been present in the team leaders is cultural awareness and proper idea about how to help each employee from different backgrounds (Brar 2017). He was not engaged in any effective feedback and criticized each member without having any knowledge about his or her cultural traditions, likings and inhibitions. As the Chinese employee was having a language barrier and were not fluent with her English speaking skills. He should have arranged for a translator for the member. Besides, he should have given her the scope of development and should have communicated the issue with the other members. Secondly, the employees should have been properly trained with the ideas of cultural sensitivity and its positive outcomes on teamwork building and rapport development (Sucher and Cheung 2015). If the employees had been culturally sensitive, they would not have made such insensitive comments to the Japanese girl. For developing the cultural awareness, the team leader could have arranged for resources like providing them with proper reading materials, website links and different important evidence based journals. This would have ensured that they get ideas about importance of cultural awareness and develop it is proper manner (Ferraro and Briody 2017). Besides, the leader could also arrange for training session where they would be taught the important initiatives that should be taken to effectively maintain teamwork in a multicultural environment. They would be also provided the skills that would help them to provide a culturally competent practice (Campbell et al. 2016). Another initiative the team-leader could have arranged is proper feedback sessions. Here, all the employees would express their concerns so that they do not suffer from depression and frustration. This session would not only help the novice employees know what mistakes they are making but would also help them in exchange of cultural knowledge. This would develop cultural sensitivity. Besides, researchers are of the opinion that developing cultural self-awareness through reflection also helps in delivering culturally competent teamwork attributes (Parker 2015).
References:
Ang, S. and Van Dyne, L., 2015. Handbook of cultural intelligence. Routledge.
Brar, D., 2017. Keep the Patels: How Culturally Competent Teamwork Can Alleviate the Law’s Diversity Retention Problem. Concordia L. Rev., 2, p.118.
Campbell, D., Bishop, N. and Sarin, S., 2016. Case Study: Applying Communities of Practice in Graduate Enrollment Management for a Cultural Interpretation of Workplace Learning. Journal of Research Initiatives, 2(2), p.2.
Ferraro, G. P., & Briody, E. K. (2017). The cultural dimension of global business. Taylor & Francis.
Jenifer, R. D and Raman, G. P. 2015. Cross-cultural communication barriers in the workplace. Internafional Journal of Management, 6(1), 348-351.
Moran, R.T., Abramson, N.R. and Moran, S.V., 2014. Managing cultural differences. Routledge.
Parker, C., 2015. Practicing conflict resolution and cultural responsiveness within interdisciplinary contexts: A study of community service practitioners. Conflict Resolution Quarterly, 32(3), pp.325-357.
Rice, M.F. and Mathews, A.L., 2015. A New Kind of Public Service Professional Possessing Cultural Competency Awareness, Knowledge, and Skills. Classics of Organization Theory, 2005, p.429.
Sucher, W. and Cheung, C., 2015. The relationship between hotel employees’ cross-cultural competency and team performance in multi-national hotel companies. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 49, pp.93-104.
Zakaria, N. (2017). What Does It Take? New Praxes of Cross-Cultural Competency for Global Virtual Teams as Innovative Work Structure. In Human Capital and Innovation (pp. 131-160). Palgrave Macmillan, London.
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