Managing Multinational Teams: Global Perspectives

Managing Multinational Teams: Global Perspectives
Communication and the Learning Effectiveness of Multinational Teams

Gerardine DeSanctis, Lu Jiang
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COMMUNICATION AND THE

LEARNING EFFECTIVENESS OF
MULTINATIONAL TEAMS
Gerardine DeSanctis and Lu Jiang
ABSTRACT
We examined the effects of group structure and electronic communication
patterns on the performance of 18 multinational teams over an 8-month
period. The teams were composed of a mix of Western and non-Western
executives located throughout the world. In these highly diverse teams,
team performance did not vary as a function of demographic heterogeneity; however, demographic homogeneity within the teams subgroups
negatively affected team performance. The following communication patterns were associated with better team performance: a hierarchical communication structure, expressions of trust in the teams competence,
references to the self, and information-providing statements.
Scholars have consistently argued that team-member demographics, effective communication, trust, identity, and learning are crucial to team effectiveness, but very few empirical studies have examined these processes in
multinational contexts (some exceptions are Gibson & Vermeulen, 2003;
Jarvenpaa & Leidner, 1999; and Maznevski & Chudoba, 2000). In this
Managing Multinational Teams: Global Perspectives

Advances in International Management, Volume 18, 97123
Copyright r 2005 by Elsevier Ltd.
All rights of reproduction in any form reserved
ISSN: 0747-7929/doi:10.1016/S0747-7929(05)18004-4
97
98
GERARDINE DESANCTIS AND LU JIANG
chapter, we report on a study of 18 multinational teams as they interacted

during a graduate-level educational program. Our goal was to identify factors that account for why some of the multinational teams in our study
performed better than others, as evidenced by nal grades assigned to the
teams by instructors in the program.
We dene a multinational team as a team that has three properties. First,
the group is formally designated as a team. Members are assigned to work
together toward a common objective and are thus interdependent. They
recognize themselves to be a team (Cohen & Bailey, 1997). Second, the team
is composed of people from a diverse set of nations, representing both Western
and non-Western backgrounds and experiences. Third, the team members
are located in multiple countries and conduct much of their work using
computer-mediated communication systems, especially the Internet (see
Earley & Gibson, 2002; Spreitzer, Shapiro, & Von Glinow, 2002). Thus,
multinational in this context means that teams are both multicultural and
distributed. For example, a team may include members of Japanese, Indian,
Mexican, and Canadian heritage who work together as a team, with members located in Tokyo, Miami, Singapore, and Toronto. This type of multinational team is important to managers and management scholars because
of the complexity of the issues that it confronts in everyday work. These
multinational teams offer the potential benets of heterogeneous backgrounds and experiences, yet they face the challenge of reconciling differences and coordinating their work across time zones, cultures, and other
boundaries.
The study we describe here is descriptive. We analyzed the diversity of
membership in each team and then observed team communication processes
over a period of 8 months. We then related membership characteristics and
communication processes to team performance at the end of the study. The
teams consisted of 90 working executives, distributed across ve continents,
who were enrolled in a North American MBA program. The teams met
face-to-face in North America for 3 weeks at the start of the program and
then met again in Europe for 2 weeks during the fourth month of the
program. (Fig. 1 provides an overview of the program structure.) During the
remaining weeks, each team was provided with an electronic group space,
accessible via the Internet, which members used to exchange messages and
les. In all, there were 35 weeks of online interaction. Our study concerned
the online portion of the teams interaction, which consisted of the time
before and after their meeting in Europe. We examined the teams overall
use of the electronic group space, assessing the volume (i.e. amount) and
pattern of team communication. In addition, we coded the complete

June
July
Aug
Sept
Online learning
Team created.
Participants
meet for 3
weeks of faceto-face classes
Fig. 1.
Oct
Nov
Dec
99
Jan
Online learning
Participants
meet for 2
weeks of faceto-face classes
Group grades
(performance)
Overview of the Distance-Learning Program.
contents of 6 weeks of each teams communication in order to gain insight

into the extent of identity, trust, and learning that took place online. With
these data as our base, we compared the communication processes of the
higher performing teams with those of the lower performing teams. The
results of our study afrm some of the common wisdom surrounding success
of teams in general, especially distributed teams, but other common assumptions are thrown into question. The results add to the growing literature on the structure and dynamics of multinational teams and what makes
them
effective.
We begin this chapter by summarizing some of the common wisdom for
team performance and then discussing the implications of this wisdom for
multinational teams. We describe our research context, including the
measurement of performance, membership characteristics, communication,
trust, identity, and learning for the teams in our study. Next, we present a
summary of the research results. On the basis of our ndings, we posit
several action recommendations for managers of multinational teams. These
recommendations are tentative and suggest the need for further, in-depth
study of the communication patterns of multinational teams.
WISDOM FOR MULTINATIONAL TEAMS

Teamwork is difcult even under the best of circumstances, such as when
members have similar background characteristics or work in the same
location with ample opportunity for informal, face-to-face interaction.
Teams must work to share and combine information, coordinate individual
100
efforts, identify and resolve conicts, and so on. Multinational teams

confront the common challenges of any team, and, in addition, must cope
with the challenges of cultural diversity and working in a virtual mode
(Earley, 1993; Maznevski & Chudoba, 2000). What actions can teams take
to promote high performance when their members are culturally diverse and
geographically distributed? Common wisdom and research on teams in
general suggest the advice described in Table 1. Our study examines whether
the ve dimensions of teams also listed in Table 1 are predictive of multinational team performance. In this way, we can assess whether the common wisdom for teams applies in the multinational context.
Underlying the advice provided in Table 1 is the assumption that the
heterogeneous makeup of a team provides a resource that is greater than the
sum of its individual members, and, further, that success in achieving team
goals lies in effective communication among the members, without which
the team will not function well as a group and will thereby risk losing the
benets of bringing diverse parties to bear on the task at hand. A core
agenda for research on multinational teams is to identify precisely how a
teams membership and subsequent communication patterns affect its performance. Is the wisdom offered in Table 1 sound? Does the heterogeneous
Table 1.
Team Dimensions
Common Wisdom for Teams.

Advice
Membership
Value heterogeneity of membership. Diversity in member backgrounds

provides resources for group learning and problem solving
(Hackman, 1988).
Communication
Communicate often. More communication is better than less (see

Reagans & Zuckerman, 2001). Encourage all members to contribute
equally with their ideas and effort. Avoid overdominance by a few
members or social loafing by others (Van de Ven & Delbecq,
1971; Price, 1987).
Trust
Work to develop trust. Trust in the competence and motives of fellow

team members promotes cooperation and is vital to getting work
done (Jarvenpaa & Leidner, 1999).
Identity
Build a sense of team. Think as we rather than I to keep the team

focused and to meet group goals (Pratt & Foreman, 2000).
Learning
Seek and provide information to one another. The willingness to raise

questions and share information with one another will enhance team
learning (Edmondson, Bohmer, & Pisano, 2001).
101
composition of a multinational team make it more likely to succeed than a

more homogeneous team? What patterns of communication will lead to
better rather than worse team performance in the multinational setting? Our
study aims to address these general questions.
IMPORTANT PREDICTORS OF TEAM

PERFORMANCE
Prior research has examined many potential predictors of team performance. Here, we focus on ve major predictors and their impact on multinational team performance: membership characteristics, communication,
trust, identity, and learning. We select these because of their particular
relevance to the multinational team context. Multinational teams are characterized by their multicultural diversity and the challenges associated with
working in distributed mode.
Membership
A teams membership refers to the collective demographic makeup of the
individuals who compose the team. Common wisdom suggests the importance of teams valuing members heterogeneity (the rst team-action advised
in Table 1). Hackman (1988) explains that diversity in member backgrounds
provides resources for group learning and problem solving. In the case of
multinational teams, members come from varying cultures, and cultural
diversity provides a base for differing perspectives and insights, which, in
turn, are important for idea generation, error detection, and the groups
avoidance of groupthink or other common decision traps. Depending upon
the extent to which teams can draw out and use the knowledge and
experiences brought by multinational members to the tasks they undertake,
the teams are more likely to perform well. For teams in an educational
program such as the one we are examining here, performance involves a
cumulative process of learning over many months. Teams that are able to
apply their heterogeneous resources, and do this over time, should experience more learning and higher performance in their academic coursework.
Important membership characteristics of multinational teams include
national heritage, gender, and area of professional expertise. Following
Gibson and Vermeulen (2003), we can examine these membership characteristics in two ways.
102
Heterogeneity
Heterogeneity refers to the degree of diversity in the teams membership.
Team heterogeneity is high if members share few of the same demographic
characteristics; team heterogeneity is low if members share many of the
same demographic characteristics. Heterogeneity brings diverse capabilities
to the team and so should improve the teams potential for learning and its
ability to confront varied tasks. On the other hand, heterogeneous team
members have less common ground for communicating with one another;
their divergent backgrounds provide them with differing perspectives, making conict and misunderstandings more likely than when team members
are homogeneous (Campion, Medsker, & Higgs, 1993). These opposing
forces of heterogeneity have led a number of researchers to conclude that
although heterogeneity is strength of multinational teams, its actual effects
may be curvilinear rather than linear. The relationship between heterogeneity and group performance is, for practical purposes, a U-shaped function. Teams may cope well with very high or very low heterogeneity;
however, moderately heterogeneous teams are unlikely to use effectively
their commonalities and differences. This U-shaped relationship becomes
particularly evident over time, with moderately heterogeneous groups nding it the most difcult to benet from their diverse capabilities (Earley &
Mosakowski, 2000; Gibson & Vermeulen, 2003).
Subgroup Strength
Subgroup strength is the degree of commonality in demographic characteristics within a subset of team members that is not common to other members
of the team (Gibson & Vermeulen, 2003). A subgroup is strong if the degree
of homogeneity within subsets of team members is high, and is weak if the
degree of homogeneity within subsets of team members is low, both conditions being relative to the degree of homogeneity in the team as a whole. If
a subgroup is strong, members identify more with the subgroup than with
the team as a whole, and in-group/out-group dynamics may result (Lau &
Murnighan, 1998). Geographic distribution of the team members can aggravate this subgroup effect (Cramton & Hinds, 2003). In this way, very
high degree of subgroup strength can operate to have a negative effect in
multinational teams (since they are high in heterogeneity). On the other
hand, a moderate degree of subgroup strength may be benecial to multinational teams, since subgroups can provide supportive points of commonality among otherwise differing sets of individuals (Gibson &
Vermeulen, 2003). Although subgroup strength is acknowledged to be
103
important to group functioning, its precise effects are still in need of study
especially in multinational teams.
Gibson and Vermeulen (2003) observed that although heterogeneity and
subgroup strength may have independent effects on teams, their more substantive impact occurs through their joint inuence on team performance.
Independently, heterogeneity has a U-shaped relationship with performance, and subgroup strength has an inverted U-shaped relationship with
performance. Considered together, Gibson and Vermeulen (2003) found
highest performance in groups with a membership consisting of both high
heterogeneity and moderate subgroup strength. Multinational teams, such
as those examined in our study, are high in heterogeneity. These teams will
tend to benet from moderate subgroup strength. On the other hand, if the
degree of subgroup strength is extremely high in multinational teams, then
the teams may become polarized and performance may suffer. Thus, we can
expect heterogeneity to benet multinational teams so long as it is coupled
with moderately high subgroup strength.
Communication
Communication refers to the interaction patterns among team members.
Communication is the process by which team members bring their individual resources to bear on team tasks. With regard to team communication,
two pieces of wisdom are commonly offered to teams. First, communicate
often, and second, incorporate the views of all members (see the advice
associated with the second dimension in Table 1). Reagans and Zuckerman
(2001) explain that social network ties will be stronger if inter-member
communication is frequent rather than sparse. All other things being equal,
stronger network ties allow group members to coordinate as they meet the
challenges of task demands. If communication among members is even
rather than dominated by a few members then the various knowledge
resources held by individual members can be brought to bear during the
coordination process. Unevenly distributed information has been found to
hamper team performance, especially when team members are geographically distributed (Cramton, 2001). For this reason, group researchers (and
educators) commonly encourage all members of a team to contribute
equally with their ideas and effort. Teams should avoid overdominance by a
few members or social loafing by others (see Van de Ven & Delbecq,
1971; Price, 1987). Several aspects of a multinational teams communication
104
can be observed in order to assess whether it follows the communication

advice given in Table 1.
Volume
More communication among team members (rather than less) is indicative
of greater information sharing, which facilitates a teams problem-solving
capacity (Finholt & Sproull, 1990; Reagans & Zuckerman, 2001). When
multinational team members are distributed and communicate in a common
electronic space, shared information becomes visible to all. In this way, the
teams collective memory and ability to effectively coordinate its use of
shared information should improve as its communication volume increases
(Orr, 1990). Teams with higher levels of communication should perform
better than those with lower levels of communication.
Evenness
Equal contribution by all team members, rather than dominance by a few,
has long been considered important to team success (Hackman, 1988). For
these reasons, the at team structure has become popular in an effort to
improve creativity and error detection within teams (Goodman, Devadas, &
Grifth-Hughson, 1988). Evenness would seem to be particularly important
when team members are demographically heterogeneous and geographically
dispersed. Electronic communication technologies make democratic participation more possible since multinational team members can provide input
without the time limits of formal meetings or fear of interrupting one another (Benbasat & Lim, 1993; Dubrovsky, Kiesler, & Sethna, 1991; Siegel,
Dubrovsky, Kiesler, & McGuire, 1986). Nonetheless, even participation is
not guaranteed in distributed teams. For example, free riding may be more
likely in distributed groups if people feel less social pressure to contribute
when separated by distance (Latane, 1981; Macy, 1991). Cramton (2001)
identied uneven participation as one of the key performance detractors in
distributed teams. Overall, the literature suggests that teams with more even
communication among members will outperform those with less even communication.
Structure
Beyond evenness, other aspects of a teams communication may inuence its
performance, such as the degree of vertical and horizontal differentiation in
the teams overall communication structure. Jointly these are evident in a
mapping of the teams communication pattern. Such a mapping can show
the number of dominant team members, if any, and the size and number of
105
layers in any communication hierarchy. Emergent communication structure

is known to be predictive of team performance, and, according to at least
one study, more so than task design parameters (David, Pearce, &
Randoph, 1989; Mulder, 1960). Many scholars argue that new organizational forms, including those found in multinational teams, will look more
like networks than hierarchies (Fulk & DeSanctis, 1995; Heckscher, 1994).
Electronically mediated communication, in particular, is thought to promote less hierarchical differentiation and broader participation (Bikson &
Eveland, 1990; Rice, 1994). But researchers have yet to verify that the
communication structure of multinational teams is, in fact, less hierarchical
or to determine exactly what communication pattern is associated with
better team performance.
Trust
Trust refers to the degree to which team members have condence in one
another to fulll obligations. Two important aspects of trust are benevolence and competence. Benevolence-based trust is the belief that team members are motivated to fulll obligations, that is, that their intentions are
good. Competence-based trust is the belief that team members will act as
expected to meet obligations, that is, they have skills or other capacities
needed to do the work (Barber, 1983; Cummings & Bromiley, 1995; Rotter,
1967; Sitkin & Roth, 1993). Trust in both the motives and competence of
fellow team members promotes cooperation and is vital to getting work
done. Numerous scholars have proposed that trust is critical to team functioning because it aids in cooperation and sense-making (e.g. Dirks, 1999;
Moreland & Levine, 2002). Trust has been found to be particularly important in self-managed teams (Langfred, 2004).
Although wisdom for teams in general suggests the advice given in
Table 1, the role of trust in multinational teams is not well understood.
Spreitzer et al. (2002) articulate the importance and the difculty of achieving trust in multinational teams. Jarvenpaa and Leidner (1999) explain that
the dispersed nature of multinational teams threatens trust, which, in turn,
hampers team coordination and success in accomplishing goals. Cultural
differences can exacerbate this problem since the tendency to trust others
varies across cultures, and trust is expressed and sustained in somewhat
different ways across nations (Inglehart, 1997; Meyer, 1993). In their studies, Earley and Gibson (2002) and Jarvenpaa and Leidner (1999) found that
trust is more difcult to develop and maintain in culturally diverse and
106
distributed teams owing to ambiguity brought on by cultural differences and

lack of face-to-face interaction. Though difcult to achieve, we would expect
multinational teams that express high levels of trust to function more
smoothly, and thus perform better, than teams that express low levels of
trust.
Identity
Group identity is dened as a perceived oneness, such that team members
experience the teams successes and failures as their own (Mael & Ashforth,
1992). Identity is the social glue that holds the individual members of a
team together (Van Vugt & Hart, 2004). To develop identity, Pratt & Foreman (2000) advise that group members think as we rather than I to
keep the team focused and to meet group goals. Teams that engage in
communication that is we- rather than I- oriented are more likely to
maintain common focus, and thus, have higher performance than those that
remain individualistic in their discourse. Hence, the advice in Table 1 is
given for teams in general.
In a multinational team setting such as the one we are studying, team
members have to use electronic media to communicate and maintain common identity, since face-to-face meetings are rare. Like trust, identity is
difcult to develop online since the informal conversations and interactions
that tend to elicit feelings of belonging are absent (Finholt & Sproull, 1990).
Further, in multinational teams, the salience of team identity is likely to be
low relative to the local demands and related identities that members face
(Blackburn, Furst, & Rosen, 2003). We would expect multinational teams
that overcome these obstacles and engage in more identity-related communication to perform better than those that engage in less communication of
group identity. Identity is hypothesized to bring performance benets as it
energizes otherwise heterogeneous and distributed group members to work
together (Ellemers, de Gilder, & Haslam, 2004; Shapiro, Furst, Spreitzer, &
Von Glinow, 2002).
Learning
Learning within a team is reected in team members active exchange of
information with one another. Learning occurs as the knowledge and skills
of individual members are shared with other members of the team.
107
Edmondson, Bohmer, and Pisano (2001) and Choo (1998) outline a vast
array of group activities that are indicative of the team-learning process.
Among these, the two important activities are information seeking and
information providing. Information seeking occurs as group members ask
questions of one another, seek resources or feedback, or verify information
among themselves. Information providing occurs when group members offer
ideas, comments, solutions, or other information to the group whether or
not it is solicited. Information providing and seeking can be thought of as
the push and pull of knowledge sharing in the team. In an educational
setting such as the one we are studying, information seeking and providing
are expected to enhance teams ability to comprehend and meet task
demands; hence, the advice provided in Table 1 would seem appropriate for
multinational teams.
The heterogeneity inherent in multinational teams offers potential for
learning, but whether learning processes actually emerge is likely to vary
across teams (Cramton & Hinds, 2003). Cramton and Hinds argue that the
biases and barriers associated with culture and locale can be so strong that
the multinational teams may nd it difcult to cross subgroup lines as they
communicate. Those multinational teams that actively engage in information sharing are more likely to be successful in their work together. We
would expect information seeking and providing to facilitate multinational
team performance, especially on learning-oriented tasks such as those
involved in an educational program.
We now describe our studys method and ndings. Again, our goal is to
assess whether the wisdom for teams in general, as summarized in Table 1,
applies to the multinational team context. We limit our analysis to main
effects only, examining whether we can meaningfully distinguish higher and
lower performing teams on the basis of their membership characteristics,
their communication patterns, and their expression of trust, identity, and
learning in their online discourse. The study of these main effects represents
an important rst step in understanding communication processes in
multinational teams. We note that to date, very few studies have examined
the communication processes of distributed multinational teams (e.g. Gibson & Vermeulen, 2003; Jarvenpaa & Leidner, 1999; Maznevski &
Chudoba, 2000), and that these studies have limited their examination to
either a very small set of nationalities or a very small number of teams.
Jarvenpaa and Leidner (1999) and Maznevski and Chudoba (2000) studied
very heterogeneous teams, but their sample sizes were extremely small, and
hence their results restricted to qualitative analyses. Gibson and Vermeulen
(2003) studied a very large sample of teams, but the heterogeneity in their
108
teams was lower than in the other studies. Heterogeneity within the teams
we examined was greater than in the Gibson and Vermeulen (2003) study;
our sample size is not nearly as large as theirs, but it is sufcient for some
statistical analyses. Further, our sample allows us to study the combined
effects of cultural diversity and distributed communication that occured
over a period of many months.
METHOD
Context
Data for our study was drawn from the rst segment in a 19-month global
executive MBA program. The program is centered in North America, but
participants are welcome from all over the world as long as they meet
admission criteria. The program is designed for working executives with
extensive professional experience and whose work involves some
multinational component. The participants hail from a variety of professions and organizations. They include managers of large multinationals;
CEOs of smaller, entrepreneurial rms; managers of government and nonprofit ventures; and independent professionals, such as physicians, lawyers,
and consultants. The average participant is 38 years old with 12 years of
work experience. As Fig. 1 illustrates, the participants are organized into
teams at the start of the program, and these teams continue for 8 months
before being disbanded. During this 8-month segment, the teams have two
periods of face-to-face interaction, the rst in June, at the time they are
formed, and the second approximately mid-way in the time of their life
together. The face-to-face periods include intense classroom instruction as
well as team projects. Otherwise, communication among team members
occurs electronically, via the Internet. Online learning consists largely of
team activities. At the end of 8 months, the next segment of the program
begins, and new teams are formed.
Tasks
The learning tasks undertaken by the teams in our study included a range of
projects associated with courses in management, accounting, statistics, economics, and decision making. The projects consisted mostly of case assignments, although some problem sets or other exercises were occasionally
assigned. All of the projects required interdependent work, in the sense that
they required input from multiple members for completion. Teams were
109
given grades for each assignment, with nal grades computed at the end of
the term.
When the teams were formed, all participants were informed of the honor
code of the educational institution as well as the institutions learning
partnership dictum. Together, the honor code and learning partnership
emphasize a culture of respect, honesty, and integrity in the educational
program. Teams were encouraged to work together in a positive spirit and to
foster an atmosphere conducive to learning. Beyond this, the teams were selfmanaged and given no formal instruction. There was no designated leader,
roles, hierarchy, or recommended method for organizing. Each team was
empowered to freely organize and operate as it wished. The only formal goal
was to meet assignment deadlines. In order to meet deadlines, the distributed
learning setting demanded initiative and proactivity on the part of team
members (Lipnack & Stamps, 1997). But the fact that teams were empowered
to self-manage was assumed to be motivating; teams could set their own
expectations and solve their own problems in ways that met their particular
schedules and needs (see Kirkman, Rosen, Tesluk, & Gibson, 2004).
Participants
The teams were created by program administrators with a goal of mixing
Western and non-Western participants and a diversity of expertise and
location within the team. Figure 2 shows the nationalities of the
participants. Approximately half of the participants were from the United
60
Number of participants
50
Africa/
Middle East
40
30
20
Australia/
New Zealand
Asia
U.S. &
Canada
Latin
America
10
Europe
0
North America
Fig. 2.
Other countries
Nationalities of the Study Participants.
110
States or Canada, 13% were from other Western countries (including Australia and New Zealand), and the remaining 37% were from non-Western
nations. More than half of the participants were working as expatriates in
locations other than their native country. All teams included a mix of people
from different time zones, and nearly all included participants located on at
least two continents. Twelve percent of the participants were women. Thirty
percent were general managers; 12% had expertise in nance, and the
remaining were a mix of other professions and expertise.
Of the 18 teams, 16 had ve members each, one had six members, and one
had four members.
Measures
Performance
Team performance in our study was measured as the average of all grades
assigned to a team for their cumulative work as of the end of January. This
is a measure of overall group success on multiple team assignments across
multiple courses.
Membership
Heterogeneity and subgroup strength were measured using calculations
provided in Gibson and Vermeulen (2003), using nationality, gender, and
functional expertise as inputs to the calculations. The overlap in these three
attributes among all possible pairs of members on each team was rst
determined. Overlap for all pairs on a team was then summed and divided
by the number of pairs on the team. Heterogeneity was computed as the
inverse of the resulting value. Subgroup strength was computed as the
standard deviation in overlap across all the pairs on the team.
Communication
Communication volume was measured as the total number of messages
posted by the team in its group discussion space during the 8-month period
(JuneJanuary). The degree of even communication across members was
measured as the standard deviation of the participation rates of the members within a team. Each team members participation rate was determined
as the total number of messages posted by that person, divided by the teams
communication volume. A high standard deviation indicates less even
participation, and vice versa. Thus, it is meaningful to think of this measure
as the degree of uneven communication within the team.
111
Communication structure was measured as hierarchical differentiation

within the communication pattern of the team. For each team, we ordered
the members from highest to lowest in terms of their participation rate. We
operationalized horizontal differentiation as a change in participation rate
between two members that was greater than the average deviation in the
team. In this way we were able to map the communication structure in terms
of levels of participation and the number of team members at each level.
Communication structure was categorized as either hierarchical (fewer
people at the top layer than at lower layers), at (no layers of differentiation;
all members contributed equally), or inverted hierarchical (more people at
the top layer than at lower layers). No teams were without at least two
layers, so teams were assigned a value of either 1 (hierarchical structure) or 0
(inverted hierarchical structure). We also visually mapped each communication structure for exploratory purposes.
Trust, Identity, and Learning

Trust, identity, and learning were measured by coding the contents of each
teams electronic group space. We extracted a total of 6 weeks of discussion
for coding and developed coding schemes for trust, identity, and learning.
The 6 weeks spanned the busiest periods in the educational program
(i.e. when many projects were ongoing with pending deadlines). Two coders,
including one of the authors and a graduate student in speech communication, coded sample passages to establish reliability. They met to reconcile
differences and rene each coding scheme as needed. Once adequate reliability was reached, they coded separately. Reliability using Cohens kappa
for the trust, identity, and learning coding schemes, based on the two coders
and a sample of 175 messages, were 0.96, 0.98, and 0.85 respectively. In all,
2383 messages were coded. All incidents of speech in the teams discourse
were counted in the various coding categories so long as they met the criteria
of the particular coding scheme. We computed raw total counts of the
incidents for each coding category, and then adjusted these for the overall
volume of communication within the team during the 6-week period. We
adjusted for volume as follows. We segmented each electronic message into
meaningful speech acts, and summed these speech acts for each team. For
each coding category trust, identity, and learning we then divided the
total raw counts of the codes by the total number of speech acts for that
team during the 6-week period. Overall, the teams averaged 448.7 (SD
53.6) speech acts. In total, there were 8076 speech acts that were examined
for possible codes.
112
Benevolence-based trust was indicated in speech acts that referred to the

motivations of team members in doing their work. We followed definitions
and examples provided by Barber (1983), Cummings and Bromiley (1996),
Rotter (1967), and Sitkin and Roth (1993) to identify these statements as
either positive or negative. Positive benevolence was indicated in statements
such as the following: Thanks for your careful work. Thanks for taking
the lead on the project. We all actively contributed to this case. Thanks
for the promptly (sic) feedback. Thanks for working the project ahead of
time. Negative benevolence was indicated in statements such as the following: Im sitting here at 7AM on Tuesday waiting for your callyQue Pasa,
Amigo? I am online with no messages to read. How disappointing! We
need it NOW to test it, Leo of (sic) not possible for you let Nat nish it. I
am a little idle waiting for instructions from you.1,2
Competence-based trust was indicated in speech acts that referred to the
skills, understanding, or other resources of team members in doing their
work. We followed definitions and examples provided by Barber (1983) and
Sitkin and Roth (1993) to identify these statements. Statements could be
positive or negative. Positive competence was indicated in statements such as
the following: This draft seems great to me. We have a wizard on the
loose. I will learn from your effort. Negative competence was indicated in
statements such as the following: Cmon Moez, the difference is absolutely
negligible. Check them again. Vijay, why are we not using the cost of land
in any of the rainbow or CB. The distributions used in Paolos BB I am
agreeable to BUT I am not sure why we keep having the cost of land
missingy. I cannot buy your results. John, after reading your last 3
postings, I havent got a clue what you have done and what you havent,
sort it out tomorrow.
Identity was measured in two ways. Team identity was measured by
counting the total number of group words. These included: we, us,
our, everybody, and everyone. As a contrast, we assessed selfidentity by counting the total number of individual words. These included:
I, me, my, and mine.
Learning included two measures derived from definitions and examples
provided by Edmondson et al. (2001) and Choo (1998). Information seeking
was indicated in statements soliciting resources, explanations, opinion, feedback, or other information. Examples include: Where can I nd our case
report? Which of our group threads will be devoted toy? Does anybody
have the documentyor know wherey? Do you know what airlines y
from Bangkok to London? Information providing was indicated in statements
of explanation, opinion, feedback, resource locations, or other information.
113
Examples include: See the attached document that Maria and I prepared. Someone at Microsoft would know. The report is too long.
Deadline for this assignment is July 6th. Below is my detailed recommendationy There is an interesting article on Chinese culture in New
York Timesy
FINDINGS
Table 2 shows summary statistics for all variables included in the study and
Table 3 shows the intercorrelation among variables. Note that values for the
communication dimension are based on total messages posted by the teams
for the full 35-week period of the study, whereas values for trust, identity,
Table 2.
Means and Standard Deviations for Team Performance and

Five Sets of Predictor Variables (N 18 teams).
Variables
Mean
Performance
Membership
Heterogeneity
Subgroup strength
177.0
Standard Deviation
14
0.595
0.685
0.11
0.28
361
0.084
0.556
155
0.04
0.51
0.041
0.038
0.094
0.043
0.02
0.03
0.04
0.04
Identityb
Group words
Individual words
0.494
1.09
0.21
0.28
Learningb
Information seeking
Information providing
0.122
0.414
0.03
0.10
Communicationa
Volume
Unevenness
Structure (hierarchy)
Trustb
Benevolence-based
Benevolence-based
Competence-based
Competence-based
(positive)
(negative)
(positive)
(negative)
Values based on totals for 35 weeks of communication.

Values represent number of instances per speech act.
114
Correlation Coefcients for Team Performance and Five Sets of Predictor Variables.
Variables
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
Performance
Heterogeneity
Subgroup strength
Communication volume
Unevenness
Structure (hierarchy)
Benevolence-based trust (+)
Benevolence-based trust ()
Competence-based trust (+)
Competence-based trust ()
Group words
Individual words
Information seeking
10
11
12
13
1.0
0.30
0.67
0.17
0.18
0.74
0.35
0.54
0.71
0.34
0.21
0.62
0.33
0.54
1.0
0.58
0.35
0.15
0.54
0.31
0.05
0.01
0.04
0.02
0.09
0.31
0.26
1.0
0.05
0.10
0.68
0.22
0.33
0.31
0.08
0.14
0.36
0.28
0.14
1.0
0.57
0.11
0.01
0.03
0.36
0.21
0.11
0.26
0.11
0.07
1.0
0.23
0.00
0.08
0.02
0.44
0.05
0.32
0.13
0.51
1.0
0.26
0.24
0.54
0.30
0.03
0.43
0.35
0.62
1.0
0.27
0.52
0.20
0.31
0.40
0.13
0.22
1.0
0.37
0.12
0.13
0.04
0.08
0.05
1.0
0.21
0.26
0.61
0.03
0.52
1.0
0.05
0.46
0.46
0.55
1.0
0.35
0.35
0.25
1.0
0.27
0.68
1.0
0.29
Table 3.
115
and learning are based on coding of 6 weeks of communication, adjusted for

the number of coded speech acts per team. We used multiple regression to
assess relationships between the predictor variables and team performance
(see Table 4). Due to the small sample size, we ran a separate regression
model for each major dimension. All models were tested for heteroscedasticity and multicollinearity. In the analysis of the communication variables,
we ran a separate regression for the structure variable due to multicollinearity in the more complete model.
Heterogeneity had no significant effect on performance; however, subgroup strength had a strong negative effect on performance. Groups with a
Table 4. Regression Results for the Effects of Five Sets of Predictor
Variables on Team Performance.
Variables
Beta (Standardized)
Membership
Heterogeneity
Subgroup strength
0.125
0.739
Communication
Subgroup strength
Volume
Unevenness
Structure (hierarchy)a
0.620
0.311
0.296
0.740
Trust
Subgroup strength
Benevolence-based
Benevolence-based
Competence-based
Competence-based
0.421
0.013
0.270
0.424
0.256
(positive)
(negative)
(positive)
(negative)
Identity
Subgroup strength
Group words
Individual words
0.512
0.015
0.438
Learning
Subgroup strength
Information seeking
0.591
0.042
0.441
A separate regression was run for this variable due to multicollinearity in the more complete
model.
po0.10.
po0.05.
116
greater degree of subgroup strength tended to perform more poorly. We

tested for curvilinear effects of heterogeneity and subgroup strength, both
separately and together (see Gibson & Vermeulen, 2003), but these effects
were not significant. Most likely this is due to higher values for heterogeneity in our dataset relative to Gibson & Vermeulens (2003) dataset.
Heterogeneity in our teams was substantially greater than in the teams
studied by Gibson and Vermeulen (mean 0.595 in our sample compared
with 0.291 in their sample). The teams in our study are all relatively high in
heterogeneity. Consistent with Gibson & Vermeulen (2003), these highly
heterogeneous teams beneted from moderate subgroup strength; however,
very high subgroup strength hurt their performance. Given the significance
of the effect for subgroup strength, we entered subgroup strength as a
control variable in all of our subsequent analyses.
Communication volume and unevenness had no significant effect on team
performance; however, communication structure was a significant predictor
of performance. Figure 3 displays the full set of structures we observed.
More teams used hierarchical structures (N 10), and those that used these
structures tended to outperform those that used the inverted hierarchical
structures. We checked to see if the team members on the lower layers of the
inverted hierarchies were social loafers, in the sense of making markedly
fewer contributions relative to team members at the next highest level. Team
members at the bottom of the inverted hierarchies averaged 10% of the
posted messages for their team, whereas those at the next level up averaged
24% of the posted messages for their team. This difference was not
markedly different from that observed in the hierarchical teams, where team
members at the bottom averaged 15% of the posted messages and those at
the next level up averaged 30% of the posted messages for the team.
As a nal exploratory analysis of the team communication structures, we
examined the background characteristics of the dominant participants in
each team (i.e. those at the highest level in the communication hierarchy).
There were 40 dominant participants in all, and, of these, 10% were women
and 60% were from North America or other Western nations. These are
roughly equivalent to the overall sample characteristics of 12% women and
63% Western.
Analyses of trust, identity, and learning revealed that the higher performing teams expressed more positive and negative competence per speech
act than the lower performing teams. They were less likely to express negative benevolence. They also made more references to the self and expressed
more information-providing statements to the group. Contrary to our
expectations, the higher performing teams did not express more positive
117
(1)
Hierarchies
(5)
(2)
(1)
(1)
Inverted hierarchies
(2)
(1)
(2)
(3)
Fig. 3.
Emergent Communication Structures (number of teams per structure is

shown in parentheses).
benevolence. They did not make significantly more use of group words, nor
did they provide more information-seeking statements to the group. Overall,
some of our ndings support providing multinational teams with the general
advice for teams reviewed earlier in this chapter. Some of our ndings,
however, suggest that the advice may not be appropriate for multinational
teams.
DISCUSSION
What advice do the results of our study suggest for multinational teams? We
can modify the wisdom provided in Table 1 and suggest some more
customized advice for teams that simultaneously confront the challenges of
distance and cultural diversity.
With regard to the importance of valuing heterogeneity in team
membership, our ndings suggest that multinational teams should beware
of strong subgroups that may polarize group process and create divisions
118
rather than cohesion. Heterogeneity provides an opportunity for learning,

but high heterogeneity in itself does not guarantee strong team performance.
Teams should look deeper, into the makeup of their subgroups and avoid
forming subgroups that are homogeneous with one another relative to the
degree of homogeneity in the team as a whole. Multinational teams are, by
definition, diverse in their membership. According to our data, very high
subgroup strength in multinational teams can hinder team performance.
Cramton and Hinds (2003) hypothesize that geographic distribution can
magnify the downsides of subgroups, and encourage undue taking of
sides and coalition formation within teams. It is possible that teams in our
sample with very strong subgroups engaged in communication that
fractured team coordination (e.g. private e-mails). Future research should
work to sort out the combined role of heterogeneity and subgroups in multinational teams whose primary communication is electronic. Further understanding of the relationship between these two important aspects of multinational team membership is needed.
With regard to the importance of communicating often, in an even manner, and without hierarchy or domination (the second area of advice
provided in Table 1), our study offers some surprising ndings. Increased
volume and evenness of communication in teams did not bring the anticipated advantages to the teams we studied. Highly active teams in which all
team members contributed equally did not tend to perform better. Instead, a
hierarchical communication structure aided team performance. High
volume of communication is usually considered to be good for teams
where members are distributed and their work is long-term (Finholt &
Sproull, 1990; Reagans & Zuckerman, 2001). Greater communication volume is assumed to reect greater information sharing (Orr, 1990); but volume of communication in the teams we studied was not correlated with
either information seeking or information providing in our study. The implication is that sending more messages is not necessarily better for
performance. Instead, sending more information-providing statements,
irrespective of volume per se, is better for the team.
With regard to the structure of communication, we found that hierarchical communication patterns (characterized by a few dominant participants)
brought about better performance than inverted communication patterns
(in which most team members contributed heavily and one or two contributed much less). All of our participants were working full-time while enrolled in the educational program. They faced heavy demands on their time,
and most were traveling frequently. For these heterogeneous and highly
distributed teams, the hierarchical communication structure in which a
119
minority number of participants dominated the discussion likely facilitated

their ability to organize and focus their work. Rather than a at structure
with equal participation by all, the hierarchical structure brought efciency
that facilitated team success. The implication is that multinational teams
may be advised to engage in hierarchical rather than at communication
patterns. At the same time, they should follow the common wisdom
(see Table 1) and avoid social loafing. In other words, it is ne for some
members to be more dominant, but this does not mean that other members
should barely participate.
Interestingly, when we examined the hierarchical communication
patterns more closely, we found that the Westerners and male participants
were not necessarily the dominant participants. The leaders in terms of
the communication hierarchy were generally reective of the diversity of the
participant base as a whole. The implication in terms of advice for multinational teams is that communication leaders should reect the diversity
of the team as a whole and not necessarily its majority or dominant
cultural type.
With regard to the importance of developing trust among team members
(the third area of advice provided in Table 1), our results conrm the common wisdom: it is important for team members to express trust in one
another, sharing both positive and negative observations about the teams
competence. Avoiding negative statements about others motives or
intentions is also good advice. Negative expressions of team members motives may be viewed as personal accusations, introducing the kind of conict
that is difcult to resolve in the multinational context.
With regard to the importance of building a sense of team identity among
team members (the fourth area of advice provided in Table 1), our ndings
suggest some advice that differs from the common wisdom. In the teams we
studied, use of words reecting a common team identity was not facilitative
of performance. Instead, greater references to I, me, etc. had a positive
effect on performance. Reading through the team discussions, we surmise
that many successful teams posted messages informing each other about
their whereabouts, their progress on assignments, and so on. Self-reference
combined with the hierarchical communication pattern discussed earlier
suggests that in the higher performing teams, members were reporting on
their activities, enabling the kind of monitoring that goes on in an efcient
hierarchy. Future research should examine the nuances of identity formation in high-performing multinational teams in order to more fully
understand identity dynamics, especially where there is a mix of individualistic and collectivist cultures.
120
With regard to the nal area of advice provided in Table 1, the results of
our study conrm the common wisdom that teams can benet from
providing information to one another. Teams that shared ideas, opinions,
interpretations, resources, and so on even when others did not ask for
it outperformed teams that engaged in less of this information-providing
behavior. We did not observe a performance advantage associated with
information-seeking behavior, suggesting that is more important to push
knowledge out to members than to actively pull out information during
team interaction.
To summarize, we found that higher performing teams interacted as a
hierarchy and spoke more as individuals than as a group, defying some of
the common wisdom for teams. Nonetheless, these multinational teams did
take important steps to function as teams rather than loose collections of
individuals. Relative to the lower performing teams, the higher performing
teams communicated competence, both positive and negative; they avoided
criticizing the motives of each other; and they engaged in high degrees of
information providing with one another.
Our study is limited due to the small sample of teams we studied and the
connes of their operating within an educational program. Though highly
diverse, team members were dominantly Western and male. People in this
population tend to be rather competitive, aggressive, and self-condent.
Perhaps some of the standard advice for teams such as the importance of
high volume and evenness of communication and expression of group identity
does not necessarily confer an observable performance advantage to
multinational teams drawn from this population. Also, we did not do a time
series analysis or capture performance measures over time to be able to detect
the effects of performance feedback on team behavior. Nor did we study
interaction effects of the predictor variables; we limited our research to main
effects. Future studies should enrich the analyses to address these issues.
With the limitations of our study in mind, our results nonetheless suggest the
importance of revisiting common wisdom for teams in the multinational
context. Further, in-depth understanding of the structure and communication
dynamics of multinational teams is sorely needed. Through research and practical experience, the wisdom for multinational teams will continue to evolve.
NOTES
1. A complete copy of the codebook for trust, identity, and learning is available
from the authors.
121
2. To protect the anonymity of participants, names used in the example messages

given in the paper are ctitious.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The assistance of Karen Rivers in conducting the communication coding for

this study is gratefully acknowledged.
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