Multi-Cultural Teams As Sources For Creativity and Innovation: The Role of Cultural Diversity On Team Performance

International Journal of Innovation Management
Vol. 20, No. 1 (January 2016) 1650012 (34 pages)

© Imperial College Press
DOI: 10.1142/S1363919616500122
MULTI-CULTURAL TEAMS AS SOURCES FOR

CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION: THE ROLE OF
CULTURAL DIVERSITY ON TEAM PERFORMANCE
RICARDA BOUNCKEN
Int. J. Innov. Mgt. 2016.20. Downloaded from www.worldscientific.com
Chair of Strategic Management and Organization

by FLINDERS UNIVERSITY on 02/16/16. For personal use only.
University of Bayreuth
Prieser Str. 2, 95440 Bayreuth, Germany
bouncken@uni-bayreuth.de
ALEXANDER BREM
Mads Clausen Institute, University of Southern Denmark
Alsion 2, 6400 Snderborg, Denmark
brem@mci.sdu.dk
SASCHA KRAUS
urst-Franz-Josef-Strasse
Institute of Entrepreneurship, F€
9490 Vaduz, Liechtenstein
sascha.kraus@unisg.ch
Published 19 June 2015
Multi-cultural teams are seen as a wellspring of creativity and innovativeness. Yet, we still
miss an in-depth study of their potential and challenges during the innovation process in
firms. This is a serious omission as many international firms are in need of improving their
global innovation position by the inclusion of insights from team members of different
nationalities with knowledge about markets and culture. To derive first insights, we
conducted a longitudinal qualitative study in a large global company with 70 personal
interviews in five innovation teams over a period of two years. These data, based on semi-
structured interviews, provide us with rich information about effects of cultural diversity in
teams in the innovation process. Data were analysed through a thematic network analysis
and two coders inductively forming categories. Results indicate that cross-cultural teams
have a high potential of creativity, but are confronted with difficulties arising from different
working- and communication styles which have to be proactively managed from the
beginning. While progressing, teams learn to cope with this diversity related to some more
surface-level cultural dimensions and members even align. Yet, diversity of power distance
induces conflicts that deeply impact the innovation process. Based on these findings,
we develop a set of propositions, which lead into a conceptual model on the effects of
1650012-1
R. Bouncken, A. Brem & S. Kraus
multi-cultural team work on creativity and innovation. Finally, we discuss further impli-
cations for research and practice.
Keywords: Multi-cultural; creativity; innovation; cultural diversity; team performance.
Introduction
For innovations, in particular in global markets, creativity is regarded a prime
success factor (Spector et al., 2004; Cummings and Oldham, 1997). As firms
increasingly extend their global operations and market presence, they are facing
diverse customer expectations that have to be fulfilled with creative products and
services through a rich understanding of their national backgrounds and desires
(Kraus et al., 2014).

A strategy to cope with the challenge of delivering creative solutions to several
dissimilar markets are multi-cultural innovation teams which can provide an in-
depth knowledge of consumer habits. As the innovation process perpetually
demands novel solutions of products and services, creativity plays a key role in
innovation teams established to merge and utilise diverse individual knowledge.
Although team-based structures in firms can contribute to the successful generation
and implementation of ideas, dangers remain that are in particular crucial in cross-
cultural teams (Cooper and Kleinschmidt, 1995; Gupta, 1996; Mathisen et al., 2004).
If the work in teams produces a climate of mistrust, threat, and anxiety, it damages
the innovation process (Janssen et al., 2004). This danger is more likely to occur in
multi-cultural innovation teams, and in a very diverse international context such as
between Europe and Asia (Brem and Wolfram, 2013). Even though diversity can
contribute through different mindsets, informational benefits, and team spirit to the
creativity of team, multi-cultural innovation teams face the challenge of dissimilarity
of values due to different national backgrounds. Diversity in values can increase
conflicts and lead to a lower team morale and efficiency (Jehn et al., 1999; Brem and
Wolfram, 2013), which in turn can inhibit creativity. As such, the study of creativity
effects through multi-cultural innovation teams is an important research field.
Yet, little is known about multi-cultural innovation teams and their creative
potential. Although there is a growing body of literature on multi-cultural teams
(Kirkman and Shapiro, 2005), or ethnical/national diversity in teams respectively
(Cox et al., 1991; Dahlin et al., 2005), innovation and creativity in multi-cultural
teams have been a neglected issue. This research gap is even more vital for
longitudinal aspects.
Our study therefore aims to explore effects of cultural differences in teams, on
team processes, and therefore on creativity and innovation on the basis of a large
scale (n ¼ 70) qualitative longitudinal study within a large global enterprise being
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Multi-Cultural Teams as Sources for Creativity and Innovation
referred to as “BLUE”. In our study, we focus on cultural value differences

(Hofstede, 1983, 1984) as well as on differences in communication and working
styles (Hall and Hall, 1990) in the progress of the innovation process. Woodman
et al. (1993) argue that creativity of a group is a function of individual creativity
and of several group factors like its composition, characteristics, and processes.
Thus, we explore first which characteristics related to national culture possibly
enforce innovation. Second, we research which classes of team dynamics affect
innovation. Third, our research aims on finding patterns of the influences in teams
on creativity and innovation.
Theoretical Concepts
Creativity and innovation

Creativity and innovation are two largely interwoven concepts (Janssen et al.,
2004; Miron et al., 2004). Creativity has been defined as the production of novel,
appropriate ideas in any domain (Amabile et al., 1996), whereas innovation is
referred to as the introduction and application of processes, products, or proce-
dures new to the relevant unit of adoption (Anderson and West, 1996; Bouncken
and Kraus, 2013). Creativity is produced at the individual level and refers to new
products and ideas, whereas innovation is the successful implementation of those
products at an organisational level (Oldham and Cummings, 1996). This implies
that creativity and innovation are two distinct concepts which follow each other
sequentially. This view is supported by the organisation of companies in a front-
end and a back-end of innovation, whereby the former one is usually where
creativity is seen as the only success factor (Brem and Voigt, 2009). However, this
conception of creativity and innovation does not consider that a new product
emerges from a complex process on experimenting, deciding, and implementing
solutions to new problems — which is usually needed in the back-end part as well.
Therefore, creativity explicitly has to be extended by the reconfiguration of known
approaches into new alternatives (Perry-Smith and Shalley, 2003).
Creativity is a cognitive process, which is important during the whole process
of implementing an innovation, which in turn is the product of a creative idea that
initiated the process. The term innovativeness includes creativity as well as the task
related abilities which are important for the operationalisation of the idea (Eggers
et al., 2014). Ideas or components of innovations can come from many sources,
often from experimentation, environmental changes, developments by other firms,
and even by artificial intelligence.
In this paper, we refer to innovativeness as a combination of creativity and
implementation of ideas since creativity alone is not sufficient for the success of a
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company and an innovation itself is not possible without creativity. From a re-
search perspective, the integration of the two concepts leads to a larger and richer
body of literature, which includes factors that influence creativity on an individual
or team-level as well as contextual factors supporting innovation.
Multi-cultural teams
The literature provides us with a huge body of empirical findings on processes
within team work embedded in a national environment. Those findings point out
different factors such as project commitment (Hoegl et al., 2004) and team work
quality (Hoegl and Gemuenden, 2001) which includes group cohesiveness (Craig
and Kelly, 1999). Furthermore, the level of participation in decision-making (De

Dreu and West, 2001) enhances creativity or innovation.

Researchers have been eager to explore the effects of diverse national or ethnical
backgrounds (Cox et al., 1991; Dahlin et al., 2005; Gibson and Vermeulen, 2003;
Milliken and Martins, 1996) as well as the effects of cultural dimensions on a de-
pendent variable such as teamwork metaphors (Gibson and Zellmer-Bruhn, 2001) or
team efficacy and effectiveness (Gibson, 1999; Eby and Dobbins, 1997). Those two
traces of literature define different concepts. On the one hand, diversity in teams is
viewed where team members have a dissimilar national or ethnic background.
Therefore, the effects of easily perceived surface level variations such as ethnicity
(Harrison et al., 2002) across team members are explored. On the other hand, research
takes cultural differences into consideration. Culture, the collective programming of
mind (Hofstede, 1980b) which distinguishes the members of one human group from
another, refers to differences in values (Maznevski and DiStephano, 2000) and/or
communication styles (Hall and Hall, 1990). Cross-cultural literature explores dif-
ferences in cultural values between homogeneous groups, e.g., which aspects are
universally applicable across cultural frontiers (Brem and Wolfram, 2013).
Against the background of different cultural backgrounds, we use the term
“multi-cultural team”, as we consider teams having different values, styles, etc.
Hence, we take into account that there might be differences in cultural values even
within one country (Kirkman and Shapiro, 2005), and potential culture-related
changes in personal behaviour.
Levels of diversity in multi-cultural teams

In analogy to Harrison et al. (2002) who arrange diversity dimensions, cultural
dimensions can be structured by their level of visibility. We follow this idea and
use the visibility concept to organise cultural dimensions of prominent cultural
classifications — based on the works by Hall and Hall and by Hofstede.
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Hall and Hall (1990) suggest three dimensions to differ between cultures: Dis-
tinctive degrees of information coding through the use of language, specific need for
territorial space, as well as differences in using time and working styles (esp.
monochromic versus polychromic). Hofstede (1993) instead is focusing on less
visible dimensions which are power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism
versus collectivism, masculinity versus feminity. Finally confucian dynamism or
long-term orientation of a country was added later (Hofstede and Hofstede, 2005).
Effects on creativity through cultural values

The effect of Hofstede’s (1983) dimensions on innovation and R&D productivity
has been investigated on national level. But also findings in the field of creativity
and innovations can be linked to cultural dimensions. Shane (1992, 1993) found
that high power distance inhibits innovativeness and creativity through control
systems based on rules rather than trust. This is in line with Oldham and Cum-
mings (1996) who identified a “supportive and non-controlling” leadership style
which describes a low power distant leader, enhancing creativity. Individualism on
the contrary facilitates innovativeness and creativity through valuing freedom that
is necessary for creativity (Shane, 1992). Opposing to this finding, Morris et al.
(1994) argue that very high as well as very low levels of individualism and
collectivism harm organisational entrepreneurship. Low uncertainty avoidance
fosters innovation (Shane, 1993) which is consistent with the link between indi-
vidual level of risk-orientation and creativity (Amabile, 1988). Finally, Brem and
Wolfram (2013) show in their comparative study on Germany, India and China that
some cultural influenced dimensions show differences (e.g., the use of creativity
techniques in new product development), and others do not differ as expected (e.g.,
management involvement). In sum, these findings support the assumption that there
is a link between cultural dimensions and creativity and innovation.
Prior studies identified a negative effect in teams of diversity in nationality or
national values on innovation. In this line, Watson and Kumar (1992) find that
ethical diverse groups take fewer risks in decisions. As innovation is a process,
which is afflicted with strong uncertainties (Ozer, 1999), diversity in cultural
values can adversely affect innovativeness of a team. Later, Watson et al. (1993)
find that ethnical diverse groups have less effective interaction processes in the
beginning but that these diminish over time. Also communication was found an
important success factor for innovation teams (Hoegl and Gemuenden, 2001). As
context refers to the use of language, it can lead to misunderstandings and,
therefore, process losses (Bouncken, 2004).
We reason that cultural diversity in groups affects team processes and dynamics
and is likely to have an influence on creativity and innovativeness. Yet, prior
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research has not sufficiently demonstrated possible connections in a real setting in

firms. Past research has dominantly tested specific hypotheses through laboratory
experiments with students as research subjects. This is problematic since multi-
national firms often select staff members with international experiences, which the
majority of students that were selected in prior studies most likely did not have.
Only Watson (1993) applied a cross-sectional design with a student sample, but
does not provide any insights on the development and changes of cultural values
of team members. Hence, results might be biased and lead to conclusions with
limited relevance for firms.
Method and Sample

The first question of our research is about whether and how multi-culturality in teams
influences creativity and innovativeness. Here our focus lies on diversity in cultural
values and, therefore, team composition. Our second research question centers on
what typical team dynamics emerge from diversity of cultural values and are linked to
creativity and innovation. Also we aim to explore if those effects change during time.
An exploratory research design was taken, as there are no integrative frame-
works which are focused on the influence of cultural diversity of teams on crea-
tivity and innovation. For exploration and generation of hypotheses, the qualitative
method is regarded to an adequate mean (Lamnek, 1988; Eisenhardt and Graeb-
ener, 2007; Eisenhardt, 1989). Moreover, Kirkman et al. (2006) confirm that
cultural values can be determined by interviews.
Our study used a semi-standardised interview method in one of the three largest
consumer goods companies in the world which has global subsidiaries, production
plants, and R&D locations. We selected this company because of its strong need to
develop products for several nations and attracting customers with different tastes.
Hence, they strongly develop new products with international and as such inter-
cultural innovation teams (Bouncken and Winkler, 2010). For confidentiality
reasons, we subsequently call this company “BLUE”.2 The open-structured in-
terview questionnaire can be found in the appendix. Our research was only fo-
cused on radical innovation projects.
Our study consists of the analysis of five global innovation teams in the food and
cosmetics area, whereby one of them has three subteams. The timeframe for
observations was two years, interviewing members from core and extended teams.
To ensure the inclusion of different perspectives, both the project leader and his or her
2
This dataset was used with a different focus in earlier publications, especially in Bouncken and
Winkler (2010).
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supervisor were interviewed. To track team transformations, interviews took place at

the beginning, as well as at the end of each innovation project. Finally, interview data
were triangulated with evaluations and other information from different executives.
In total, in the five teams and at the two times, we carried out 70 interviews
which goes far beyond the regularly recommended number of 20–40 interviews
for qualitative studies (König and Vollmer, 1997). The interviews were conducted
in English. As the company language is English and the teams were discussing in
English during the meetings, no difficulty with this method was expected nor
experienced. Interviews were transcribed in Excel semantically, leaving out fillers’
and grammatical mistakes (Schilling, 2006) in a first step. Since our focus lays on
the content of the interviews, this method of transcription can be evaluated ap-
propriate. In a second step, the data was organised by their topics (e.g., the form of
the advantages or problems mentioned in the interview). In the third step, we

developed a thematic network analysis (Attride-Stirling, 2001) by two independent
coders to develop a coding system. This allows ensuring the objectivity of the data
analysis. In the next step, the two coders inductively formed categories (Mayring,
2003). Through this process, we achieved an in-depth knowledge of our research
topic. The following presentation of results will link quotes and statements to form
a model of the influence of cultural diversity in teams on teamwork, creativity and
innovation. Our method of data analysis has more potential: At a later point in
time, we will use the category system to quantify our findings.
Results
Description of the projects and teams
Projects at BLUE are organised in accordance with the traditional stage-gate
model of Cooper (1990). Defined tasks are carried out sequentially. Each stage is
followed by an evaluation gate. Gates are assessed by prior defined criteria and
through members of a counsel. Team members of the respective projects are
recruited from different departments. All teams have a cross-functional core team
with marketing and R&D, as well as extended members. Innovation projects are
usually supervised and organised by marketing or R&D, sometimes in joint lead.
Also members from supply chain, finance, and packaging are integrated in the core
team. In the extended subteam, locals are operating who are either regional brand
managers (marketing) or regional production managers.
Only project Salsa is a special case. In the first stages of this project, regional
marketers, R&D, and finance managers were core team members (Team A). Later, A
was restructured. Then global managers took over the tasks from regional managers.
In addition to the cross-functional core team, there were two other subteams working
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Table 1. Overview of innovation project.

Local closeness of team Level of national Local closeness of team
Level of national members/dependency on diversity in the members/dependency on
Team Innovation target diversity in the core team virtual work extended team virtual work Effects around creativity
1. Salsa (A, B, C) Complex. Highly (a) High: Latin American Located in different locations Highly Diverse: Strong distance between team (a) Language and virtual work as an
innovative. Existing dominated in Latin America, partly Latin, North members. Strong dependency obstacle for team building.
local product is (Brazilian, Japanese, Europe. High Degree of America, South- on virtual work. Virtual work
modified and Argentinean, virtual work. Late first East Asia, started before kick-off
launched globally. Mexican, German, face-to-face interaction. Europe, Africa, meeting leaving team
French). Middle East. members uncertain of the
identity of others.
(b) High: Dutch Located in one location. Task (b) Academic melting pot with
dominated, British, separated, people working different focus of education
Indian, Pilipino, individually. Team through different nationalities.
Chinese. meetings unsteady. Different functional
Interactions with Team C. backgrounds stimulated
creativity and innovation.
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(c) High: German Located in one location. (c) Motivation though interesting
dominated, Dutch, Frequent face-to-face and diverse team members that
French, Egyptian, interaction. Informal stimulated creativity and
Italian. talks. Virtual interaction innovation.
with team B, sometimes
face-to-face meetings.
2. La Fayette Refinement. Low: German dominated, Frequent interactions. Different Diverse: North-, Distance between team members High power distance of a team
Development of French and Spanish. locations in Europe such as South-, and (Europe). First, large face-to- leader as a source of
products fitting France, Germany, and Eastern Europe. face workshops integrating all dissatisfaction and power
global consumer Switzerland. Later countries. Later more one on struggle within the team.
needs. Germany and Switzerland. one telephone conferences of Reorganisation of the team
core team with locals. Few and during the innovation process
well prepared workshops with a new project lead.
together. Demotivation and conflicts
reduced team work quality and
creativity.
Table 1. (Continued )
Local closeness of team Level of national Local closeness of team
Level of national members/dependency on diversity in the members/dependency on
Team Innovation target diversity in the core team virtual work extended team virtual work Effects around creativity
3. Rouge Refinement. Low: Dutch, German, Some team members located Diverse: North, Distance between team members Competitions of global and local
Development of and Swiss at the same locations. South, and (Europe). Regular tasting goals slow down decisions.
products fitting dominated. Frequent face-to-face Eastern Europe. sessions in the beginning. Power distance of locals as an
global consumer meetings of all team Later interactions not known. obstacle.
needs. members (monthly all Innovation and creativity is strongly
two/three months). reduced due to the conflicts and
the communication problems.
4. Splendid Re-conception of an Low: British dominated Most team members work at Highly Diverse: Large distance of team members Low context is appreciated by all
existing product. and Dutch. the same location. One is Latin, North (USA, Asia, Africa, Europe). members. Feminism in the
working in another America, South- Team is working together on extended team is enhancing safe
country. Strong reliance East Asia, other projects as well with environment.
of this team member on Europe, Africa. changing leadership of each The very smooth communication
virtual work. Frequent project. One new team and very good coordinated work
face-to-face interactions member. allowed improving creativity
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with the others. and innovation.
5. Viking New Product High: Argentinean, Team members work in two Latin America, Strong distance between team No cultural differences during team
development Indian, French, locations. Frequent Europe. members (UK and Latin meetings of core team. Culture
including a new British. (monthly, bi-monthly) America). So far one face-to- as a “social lubricant”.
active. interactions of all team face meeting, due to the The team worked well even though
members. newness of the project. they faced distance. Due to
lowly perceived cultural
distance and conflicts, team
members make use of their
creativity in the subteams and
bring ideas together which
increased innovativeness.
on the innovation as well. Team B, was a research team, doing product related
fundamental research. Team C, another subteam, worked with Team B. The latter
team advised team C through offering fundamental research findings and team C
applied this research and refined the formulation of the product. Table 1 gives an
overview about every studied innovation project or team. All global projects that we
analysed were scheduled for about two to three years of project duration until market
launch. Teams were observed from the beginning until their finalisation.
Sources of creativity and innovation

Interviewees often reported an increase of the amount and level of creativity in the
team through the multi-cultural teamwork. As an overall source of creativity, they

named a richer and more diverse environment due to different national and cultural
backgrounds. From the detailed answers, we can classify different aspects. Pro-
positions are introduced in the following and are summarised in Fig. 1.
Control can have a positive effect on creativity as suggested by a team member:
“In some cases you want to have creativity. So if you want to have creativity, you
need to control maybe a little bit these people.”
Different personal characteristics emerging out of different national back-
grounds are a source of creative ideas. Interviewees stated that even if team
members have the same academic background, they differ in the focus in their
education. Especially team members in the R&D team benefit from the same
academic foundation and similar approaches to solve problems, yet an enlarge-
ment of knowledge is possible because of different focuses of their education.
Team members from cross-functional teams and extended teams benefit from
diverse mind sets such as diverse perspectives, different ways to solve problems,
Fig. 1. Conceptual framework on effects of national diversity on creativity and innovation.
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and different points of view. This becomes evident in the following statement:
“You put people together and ask to think about issues. Of course different
characteristics, different behaviours, different knowledge can help engineering
more brilliant ideas.”
National diversity within a team thus seems to be a source of overall diversity
influencing cognitive styles and problem-solving styles, academic education and,
hence, knowledge. This is in line with Kurtzberg’s (2005) findings that imply di-
versity in cognitive styles having positive effect on objectively measured creativity.
Proposition 1. National diversity in teams enhances diversity in cognitive styles,
national diverse teams will be more creative than homogeneous teams.
Also diversity in nationality will lead to a larger diversity in knowledge and

expertise. Woodman et al. (1993) argue knowledge is an important factor for

creative solutions. Through the access of different knowledge backgrounds within
the team, but also to different products while traveling to other countries, indi-
vidual knowledge will be enlarged and, hence, creativity will be enforced.
Working in and traveling to other countries is a source of creativity. But also
just working with people from different countries and using their product
knowledge as background information can create new ideas: “I go to Hungary and
Russia and I work with people from these countries so they give a lot of input and
also more understanding of the product. There are things that are not for sale in
the Netherlands and in Germany.”
Proposition 2. National diversity in teams enhances knowledge diversity.
Therefore, national diverse teams will be more creative than homogeneous teams.
Working with people from different nations is also source of motivation and has a
positive effect on the team spirit itself, as team members share their home countries’
life styles, customs, policies, and history in informal conversations. Also, the image of
the own country is reflected by team members who find an appreciated source of
humor in confronting the others with cultural stereotypes. One of the interviewees
describes culture as a “social lubricant” which leads to more fun and a more interesting
work environment. The following statement indicates that cultural diversity plays an
important role in team building within national diverse teams: “I never understand
Peter’s jokes. So it is just about. . . saying ‘Oh she is French, that’s normal. She
doesn’t understand.’ Then I keep asking ‘No, no, no, I want to understand. I want to be
part of the team.’ And that is how it is. . . just because people explain stuff like that. A
kind of creativity — a kind of feeling bonding and then he knows it is just stupid
interaction but I would have it just because I am French. Stuff like — you know —
“ooh la la” or that makes people laugh. That’s it. So you can play on that obviously. I
play that part of my personality just to create some time up — a positive mood.”
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National diversity in a team seems to play a role as a motivational factor.

However, this motivational factor does not seem to play a direct and a key role in
enforcing creativity or innovation. Instead, it seems to have an indirect affect.
National diversity in a team effects group cohesion — a team member’s motiva-
tion to maintain the team and a team spirit (Hoegl and Gemuenden, 2001). Co-
hesion in turn has positive effects on creativity (Craig and Kelly, 1999) and
innovation (Hoegl and Gemuenden, 2001).
Proposition 3. National diversity has a motivational effect on team members,
which in turn enforces cohesion in the team. Stronger cohesion in national diverse
teams will have positive effects on creativity and innovation.
Moderating factors
Teamwork in multi-cultural teams is also influenced through moderating factors.
We here focus on moderating factors that refer to certain personal traits and
experiences, which facilitate teamwork. Herein experiences through living in
foreign countries for a longer period of time or former experiences of working
together with other cultures play an important role. Also team members have to be
open-minded and not be prejudiced against other cultures.
“If you already have those kinds of demands to work on an international team it is
easy to get used to each other, get aware with each other. I had an experience when I
worked in a small city; there is a small department, so they are not so prepared. They
always think if you are Dutch, why care? Why should I change? I mean thinking is
less open. I mean I work here and they are Dutch and here I come and then you don’t
work with foreigners. So I get this kind of impression. But if you are in an organi-
sation already international, people already have this [open] kind of mindset.”
Thus we identify two moderators of team members’ characteristics which
moderate the effect of national diversity in a team on its creativity:
Proposition 4a. Past experiences with different cultures (in team work or
achieved through living in other countries) will moderate positive direct and
indirect effects of national diversity in teams on creativity and innovation.
Proposition 4b. Team members’ openness to other cultures will moderate positive
direct and indirect effects of national diversity in teams on creativity and innovation.
In addition to factors that lay in the person itself, the team composition is
important. Within two subteams of team Salsa, there were team members coming
1
The concept of cultural distance derives from Hofstede’s (1980a) work, who uses differences
between country score indices as a measure for cultural distance.
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from a distant culture.1 Although the rest of the team was national diverse as well,
team members from the distant culture did not integrate as easily. Cultural distant
team members had less influence on decisions and their ideas were not recognised
and accepted as of closer nations who dominated the team culture: “What I’ve seen —
if there are some strong groups in the team if most of the team members are German
or most of team are Dutch they may have this kind of strong influence. Just like you
have the dominant one and you have the minority one. . . Also if you have several
people from the same background their interaction. Because of their communica-
tion, their language, but also the cultural differences you can easily promote
something. . . Because if you have the same kind of background or culture.”
At the same time, his Dutch colleague reported of a different presentation style
and less spoken language competencies of the team member, which are leading to
the assumption of a lower work quality. But when looked into his work thor-
oughly, the other team members found out that this was not the case.
While we did not observe any strong negative effects such as lower work
morale, lower satisfaction or more absenteeism as Milliken and Martins (1996)
report, one of the two team members left the team shortly after the interview
leaving unclear whether the above cited situation contributed to his turn over.
Although the observed effects in the team might not be as strong as described by
Milliken and Martins (1996), a team composition with a minority and a dominant
culture will lead to problems accepting ideas deriving from a cultural distant team
member thus leaving out a source of creativity. Therefore, we consider team
composition such as dominant culture and cultural distance as moderators on the
effect of national diversity on creativity and innovation:
Proposition 4c. Cultural distance of a team member will moderate positive effects
of national diversity on creativity and innovation. It will decrease positive effects.
Proposition 4d. A dominating culture will moderate positive effects of national
diversity on creativity and innovation. It will decrease positive effects.
Sub-model on benefits
Findings presented above can be used to develop the first stage of a conceptual
model. In this sub-model, we concentrate on benefits of multi-cultural innovation
teams through cultural diversity. In the following, we will extend this model to
barriers related to diversity and effects according to the progress of the team during
the project.
Relationships developed above, inform a conceptual model developed here.
The model shows that national diversity in teams is a source of creativity and
innovation. As interviewees state, diversity in national background diversifies
knowledge and cognitive styles of their team mates, which in turn enhances
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Fig. 2. Conceptual framework on effects of cultural values on team work and innovation — changes
over time.
creativity and innovation. Some indirect positive effects of stronger group cohe-
sion on creativity and innovation are possible, too.
Sources of conflicts in cross-cultural teams

Surface level conflicts in multi-cultural teams
Although cultural diversity was shown to enhance teamwork, there are also
harmful processes. Especially in the beginning of projects, teams face conflicts that
decelerate the innovation process and enlarge the effort that is needed for the
advancement.
Effects of surface level cultural differences such as divergence in time, context
and space (Hall and Hall, 1990) are eliciting certain conflicts, especially in the
beginning of the innovation process. In the following, further propositions are
derived. Finally, an overview of the negative effects is given in Fig. 2.
Time is the dimension that had — out of the three surface level dimensions —
the largest potential to elicit conflicts, as the following quotes show: “Sometimes
people get very mad and upset about this word “enseguida”.3 “Please do it now,
3
Spanish word for “now”. An Argentinean was commenting upon the use of the word by Mexican
colleagues.
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not ‘en seguida’!” These are the ways we observe at the different cultural forms of
the countries. It doesn’t mean that they don’t want to do something. . . It may just
take longer.”
Another interviewee felt the effect of differences in the dimension more
strongly: “Others interpret being on time or deadlines differently as it is written
down on the paper. Of course it has an effect on work morale.”
Differences related to the use of time can cause problems within the innovation
process. Especially in the beginning of the project, when everybody is still used to
his own definition of punctuality this difficulty was mentioned. When tasks are
interdependent and one person waits for the results of somebody else differences in
time lead to difficulties in coordination. Coordination, the synchronisation of
efforts within the team (Hoegl and Gemuenden, 2001) is one factor which affects
innovation. Therefore, we make the following proposition:

Proposition 5a. Time will affect coordination negatively and therefore have a
negative influence on the innovation process in the beginning of the project.
Also, monochronic team members will perceive their polychronic counterparts
as putting less effort into the team’s tasks. Effort also affects the innovation process
(Hoegl and Gemuenden, 2001).
Proposition 5b. Differences of team members in the dimension of time will affect
perceived effort negatively and therefore have a negative influence on the
innovation process in the beginning of the project.
Proposition 5c. The influence of diversity in time will be moderated by the task
interdependency of the diverse team members.
Context can also lead to irritations. Frequently, interviewees report that high
context team members are upset about the use of a direct communication style,
which is often associated with impoliteness: “I have also seen it happen that
somebody from the Netherlands was so blunt that other people were quite offended
by the way he did something or the way he spoke or the things he said which is
possibly very difficult if you have that in your team.”
On the other hand, differences in context are causes for misunderstandings as low
context team members are looking for clear statements and decisions whereas high
context members are not communicating them as directly: “What I have seen in the
past, people who were not from the UK looked at the minutes for the meetings and
said: ‘Let me know: Who has agreed now?’ The answers were phased in such an
open language: ‘Potentially’, ‘Maybe we should. . .’, ‘We conceived to have a look
at. . .’ instead of ‘yes’, ‘no’, ‘we go left’, ‘we go right’. That is quite difficult because
you want a set of actions. So people maybe misunderstand each other.”
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Therefore we see three negative effects of differences in context. First, direct

language has the potential to upset other team members. Team members whose
feelings are hurt might have difficulties to feel safe and wanted in the team and might
have difficulties in bringing in their knowledge. Accordingly we argue that differ-
ences in context are negative for a group’s cohesion (Hoegl and Gemuenden, 2001):
Proposition 6a. Differences in context will affect group cohesion negatively in the
beginning of the innovation process.
Second, we argue that it will be more difficult to coordinate within the team
which becomes obvious in the second quote. Here low context team members do
not see which steps and actions there are planned in the near future.
Proposition 6b. Differences in context will affect coordination negatively in the

Third, there is a negative effect on communication, which is related to the
perceptions of language. To high context members, open communication might be
defined differently than to low context team members who associate a high context
language sometimes with hidden agendas. Hence, we propose:
Proposition 6c. Differences in context will affect communication negatively in the
Differences related to space caused relatively little conflicts. Team members
became aware of cultural differences which they saw in the way people greet each
other in business life. Sometimes this appears with kisses, sometimes with a
handshake. Differences in the dimension of space led to confusion and some
awkward situations, but they were rated as being not important for team work and
the need for more space was accepted easily by low space team members.
Changes of surface level cultural-conflicts

Although the latter differences are sources of conflicts and slow down the ad-
vancement of the innovation process, team members report that they usually occur
more obviously in the beginning of the process. Later, team members learn how to
deal with difficulties which are related to culture. After this process of adaptation,
the innovation process advances faster and more smoothly.
In this line, it was reported that the difference in use of time leads to conflicts in
the beginning, but after a short period of time, there were changes recognised:
Monochronic team members accepted that their polychronic counter parts were
late and did not meet deadlines directly. Team members changed their attitudes
towards punctuality and moreover, they did not feel offended any longer if others
were not on time: “Other cultures are much more relaxed. And then sometimes
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there is a conflict out of that. Timelines are not met. . . Now if someone says ‘in the
beginning of June I am planning a meeting’, I know now, that it will take place
later. Only in the beginning I interpreted it [being unpunctual] as unreliability.
Now I think that’s just the way it is. I think the mentality is just different. . . if it
doesn’t work out now, then he will do it some other time.”
Also, diversity in time is changing during the innovation process. For once
monochronic team members are including different understandings of punctuality
into their plans, but polychronic team members change their behaviour, too which
is expressed in the following statement: Interviewer: “What is your biggest
learning within the team?” Interviewee: “To be on time. That is what I learned
here [in Germany].”
Thus we conclude:
Proposition 7. Diversity in time will lead to conflicts in time t ¼ 1 but to

behavioural and attitudinal adaptations in time t ¼ 2 during the innovation
process. Therefore the negative effect of time in t ¼ 1 on coordination and effort
diminishes in t ¼ 2.
Also, the above described conflicts which arise out of differences in commu-
nication styles were sources of behavioural and attitudinal adaptation. Interviewees
stated how much they started to appreciate a direct language which becomes clear
through this statement by a Chinese who is talking about his experiences in the
Netherlands: “At the beginning some people who are very straight are difficult to
accept. I didn’t know the reasons why he would be so rough. But afterwards you
know that there are cultural differences, so you can talk in the same way.”
“If you know things about that [cultural differences — context was the topic
before] you can use that on purpose. Then the question is what I want to achieve.
If I want to achieve certain things, it can make sense to “be British”, but it can
also be that I need uproar or a crash. Then I have to be very German. Then I have
to be very direct and everybody jerks and everybody thinks: typical German —
terrible people. But you see the effect that some plans finally come into action
which didn’t move before because everything was so polite.”
The last two quotes clarify several points. Similar processes appear with context
as in the different use of time. Again, there are some behavioral and attitudinal
changes. Attitudinal changes also relate to the attribution of a certain behavioural
aspect — once the offended person understands that there was no intend to offend
he can deal with the cultural difference. Therefore:
Proposition 8. Diversity in context will lead to conflicts in time = 1 but to behavioural
and attitudinal adaptations in t ¼ 2 during the innovation process. Therefore the
negative effect of time in t ¼ 1 on coordination and effort diminishes in t ¼ 2.
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But more than cultural adaptation is described in the second quote. Here a
German describes an aware process where she identifies situations and uses dif-
ferent communication styles which she had learned in a multi-cultural team setting
in order to strategically influence the advancement of the innovation process.
Hence, we have indications not only for a short-term behavioral change of multi-
cultural team members, but also an enlargement of their competencies. In this case,
the German uses her developed communication skills to advance innovation
projects. Therefore we see effects of multi-cultural team work on the innova-
tiveness of a person which go beyond the innovation process of one project. Thus
we conclude:
Proposition 9. Experiences in multi-cultural teams in the long term have a
positive effect on the innovativeness of a person.

In addition to the overall increase of innovation competencies, our findings on
handling cultural conflicts also support Proposition 4, which focused on the
moderating factor of past experiences improving multi-cultural team work. As
people are not offended as easily by other work or communication styles, it is logic
that the negative effects on multi-cultural surface conflicts also are moderated by
past experiences of team members.
Proposition 10. Personal characteristics (past experiences of working in multi-
cultural teams) moderate the effect of diversity of surface level dimension on
coordination, effort, communication, and cohesion.
Therefore working in a multi-cultural setting is a means to build intercultural
competencies and skills that will enforce innovation as team members learn how to
adjust their behaviour according to the needs of the situation. Those skills even
exceed the innovation process of a product. They will facilitate future innovation
processes even if those are not accomplished by multi-cultural teams.
Deep level conflicts in multi-cultural teams

Power distance. Out of the deep level cultural dimensions, power distance was
perceived most often as a difference between team members. Also, it was the
difference, which caused most severe problems.
We observed the negative influence of power distance in the team La Fayette.
Supervision of the team was through a French team leader — most of the team
members were Germans with one exception, a person from Spain living in France.
Tasks were delegated without integrating other team members, being controlled by
the team leader. Discussions left almost no room to question assumptions. The
power of the team leader was supported by the high success of the product in
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France whereas in Germany the product was not as successful leading to even
fewer acceptances of suggestions made by Germans. Especially in marketing the
French claim led to different associations, which did not fit to the product from a
German perspective.
German team members’ answers differed strongly, as two identified direct and
open conflicts in the team, whereas two others were not having issues. One team
member was unhappy that team decisions were ignored; regardless the fact that
several market studies supported the decision. Another team individual reported
power struggles within the team members, which became worse in the context of
the restructuring of the company.
Through these observations, we identify two different cultural problems. The
first problem was already mentioned in the chapter of moderating factors

and regards the team composition. Certainly, the Germans were dominating
the culture, which was also observed by one of the team members. The
German stated: “La Fayette to me is not a multi-cultural team. It is only a bi-
national team: German and French culture. And then we have a Spanish team
mate who is living in France and therefore is directed towards the French. . .
[Bi-nationality] makes it even more difficult. If Germans are in one team they
always try to be dominant. . . [this means] absorbing a lot of time to talk, not
letting others finish their arguments, and trying to assert their own biased
opinions.”
This problem supports our Proposition 4d of harmful effects of one dominant
culture. Whereas in the other teams the problem was less obvious. This clear
statement contributes to our assumptions. But here, it was only one of the two
identified problems, which lead to new propositions, summarised in Fig. 3. The
second problem was a difference in power distance between the team leader and
the team members, which caused a high level of frustration within the team and a
struggle for power. Specifically, one negative effect is that team members have a
lower motivation to maintain the team. Thus, two team members stated that they
would not consider La Fayette a team at all. As group cohesion is one of the
factors that influence innovation positively (Hoegl and Gemuenden, 2001)
we argue:
Proposition 10a. A high power distant team leader leading a low power distant
team will cause lower levels of cohesion, which will in turn effect innovation
negatively.
Another negative effect is that team members felt cut off from information as
they reported to ask frequently for more. Information was, according to one team
member, not delivered equally to all team members leading to information deficits.
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Fig. 3. Assumed and proven effects of power distance on team work quality dimensions.
Also, communication is one of the factors that is important for successful inno-
vations (Hoegl and Gemuenden, 2001). This leads to:
Proposition 10b. A high power distant team leader leading a low power distant
team will cause lower levels of evaluations regarding communication on the team
side. This will in turn effect innovation negatively.
But not only can the combination of a high power distant leader with low power
distant team members cause difficulties. Some team leaders were also reporting
difficulties with high power distant team members. Their problem was that they
did not know when the team was committed to a task because nobody was
commenting a decision. They were missing information on their decisions. Hence,
high power distant team members are a source of uncertainty for low power distant
team leaders. As one team leader put it: “People from Chile are very straight
forward, authoritative, and entrepreneurial which means you don’t understand
when you have commitment or not. Either you enter the space of confidence or you
end up doing nothing.”
High power distance of team members can lead to less advancement of the
innovation process. A Kenyan who entered a dominantly German team described
process losses, which derived from a high power distance: “Somebody, e.g., a
technician wants to repair a machine. The engineer feels that things should be
done in a certain way. Even though the technician knows that if we go this way, it
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does not work he does not want to contradict his boss. The end of a day it can take
a very long time to get the machine to work when it could be done in the simple
way. [Knowledge gets lost?] Yes then you don’t give opportunity for people to
develop themselves and explore.”
Global innovation teams depend on sharing knowledge of team members who
have access to information on local markets. But in this quote, we see that a high
power distance of team members leads to a loss of knowledge, which can cause
delays. The two quotes show that low power distant leaders are challenged to
coordinate tasks since they do not know whether a task will work out the way they
plan. Coordination in turn is a factor influencing innovation (Hoegl and
Gemuenden, 2001).
Proposition 10c. High power distance in the team with a low power distant team
leader will lead to lower coordination within the team. Therefore the innovation
process will be decelerated.
Also, high power distant team members do not communicate their knowledge
which leads to lower degree of openness of communication, another factor which
is empirically important for innovation (Hoegl and Gemuenden, 2001).
Proposition 10d. High power distance in the team with a low power distant team
leader will lead to lower communication in the team. This will have negative
effects on the innovation process.
Another effect becomes clear regarding a highly diverse power distance team.
While low power distant team members contribute and share their knowledge in
front of their team leader high power distant members tend to observe at the
beginning: “At first for me, it is getting to know the new environment, getting used
to everything. At first, I was just observing and learning and realising and
whatever. I am not sure what the barrier is of. . . . Of course you have to get used
to a certain way of working.”
This leads to an unbalanced contribution of team members to the team’s task.
High power distant team members do not bring in their expertise and their full
potential. As this is another factor of team work quality contributing to innovation
(Hoegl and Gemuenden, 2001), we conclude:
Proposition 10e. Diversity in power distance within the team leads to lower
balance of team member contributions, which leads to lower levels of innovation
in turn.
Additionally to the leader’s perspective, we found cases of differences of power
distance within the team. Here some high power distant team members entered
team with lower power distance and also a low power distant team leader. Team
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members reported long-term changes of their behaviour and also values of the high
power distant team members. For once the Kenyan reported that he learned how to
speak up and give in his thoughts. But also a very young French team member
stated: “So, for instance in France, there are very high hierarchies. When you are
at a lower level you execute, you don’t ask. And when I joined into UK I
completely understood that this was not — it was not what BLUE is asking for. We
need to challenge and build which is completely different from executing which
means that it is a lot more about developing your question style and by ques-
tioning how can you do best and better. . . . If you had done this interview when I
first joined this was not the way I behaved in the team. It was completely different.”
In this quotation, it becomes clear that the trait of power distance changes due
to expectations, which are communicated explicitly or implicitly by the company.

Therefore, an influence of the environment on the dimension of power distance is

possible, yet the change in this dimension might not be as fast as in surface level
dimensions. Nevertheless, the harmful effect of diversity in power distance in the
team disappears over time leading to a higher degree of shared knowledge. As
visualised in Fig. 4, we propose:
Proposition 10f. Diversity in power distance will disappear over time. High
power distant team members will become less power distant. This will lead to
higher degrees of communication, better coordination, and more balance of team
member contribution in t ¼ 2 than in t ¼ 1.
Fig. 4. Proposed development of power distance over time.
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Additionally to differences in teams, we also observed concerning power dis-

tance one homogeneous team, Rouge. All team members appreciated the inte-
grating and sharing leadership style of their team leader. In the interviews, we
noted the strong satisfaction within the team and a strong intent to maintain the
team (cohesion). Communication was mentioned as sufficient, direct, formal, as
well as informal. Team members with a low level of work experience felt inte-
grated and contributing to the task and they rated the coordination and mutual
support as high. This observation supports our propositions of the harmful effects
of diversity in power distance.
Individualism. Individualism and collectivism were rarely mentioned during the

interviews. In two interviews, harmful elements of individualism became evident.

Both interviewees described the trait of individualism, which they perceived in

some people from the United States as harmful: “I don’t find the US guys par-
ticularly conducive to team working. They are very individualistic; they are very
ambitious, self-centred. Now this is a generalisation but I believe the whole ed-
ucation system builds them to be very independent and focused individuals who
recognise that hard work brings in rewards. They have a really embedded work
ethic from the start, a self-centred work ethic. So if you work hard — you know —
screw everybody else — you get the benefits. And I think some people there have a
bit of an issue of working in another team and piling everybody’s ability for the
great and good.”
The comment is in line with the finding that Anglo-Saxon teams in the US
alone were less cooperative (Cox et al., 1991). But a new perspective is added to
the finding: It is the dimension of individualism which can lead to less trust within
the team, if the rest of the team is less individualistic. Individualism therefore
seems to be a factor which begins to threaten the group’s safety and integration.
Then, creativity and innovation will be impacted negatively (West, 2002).
Proposition 11. Differences in individualism in a team will lead to lower levels of
cohesion and thus have negative effects on the innovation.
Uncertainty avoidance. As Hofstede and Hofstede (2005) argue, uncertainty

avoidance is linked to risk-orientation which is one of the factors within an in-
dividual which is enforcing individual creativity. Within the interviews, uncer-
tainty avoidance was not named often as a factor where there were differences
perceived between team members. One of the interviewees though made the
following statement: “Another question is concerning the pricing concept which
is different in all countries. Some have a very innovative price concept, which
is very successful. Now we have to think about realising it in our country
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as well.. . . Switzerland is very conservative and France is a country, which has a

high experience in changing products permanently. Therefore we have many
positive examples.”
According to Hofstede’s (1980b), uncertainty avoidance index the interviewee
came from a culture which is highly uncertainty avoiding. Hence, his statement
leads to the conclusion that it is possible to change uncertainty avoiding behaviour
once it becomes clear that less amount of information is sufficient at a certain point
in time. Thus, uncertainty avoiding team members become — through the inter-
actions with more risk-oriented individuals — less avoiding and more affiliated to
risks. In this line we propose:
Proposition 12. Diversity in uncertainty avoidance in a team will over time
lead to a decrease of uncertainty avoidance in high uncertainty avoiding team

members.
Masculinity. Masculinity seemed to be a cultural dimension where neither dif-

ferences between team members were perceived nor did problems occur out of
differences. Nevertheless, in two cases, team members were described who came
from a masculine cultural background. Although they did not mention any diffi-
culties themselves a colleague stated that they learned how to work with women in
a better way and that they were now less uncomfortable working with women.
This leads us to the proposition:
Proposition 13. Differences in masculinity in the team will change over time.
Conclusions
The aim of this study was to identify culturally related factors and their interplay
on creativity and innovativeness of multi-cultural teams and their progress. Results
were derived from a longitudinal qualitative study within a global company. The
70 interviews in five innovation teams at two points in time provide us with rich
results on different stimuli and limits of creativity and innovativeness, which form
the basis for our overall model proposed in Fig. 6.
Our results indicate that cultural diversity affects the teamwork in different
ways: First, multi-national teams can have informational advantages. Those teams
use a broader source of information and tend to be better in organising the in-
formation. As the integration of different information is one of the key determi-
nants of effective decision-making — especially regarding complex problems
(Dahlin et al., 2005) — the existence of different cultures in a team can affect the
1650012-24
innovation process. Second, the degree of diversity is an important influence

factor: Very homogeneous or very heterogeneous teams have a higher team
identity, efficacy, role expectations, and intra-team communication than moder-
ately heterogeneous teams (Earley and Mosakowski, 2000). Team identity is
connected to team cohesion which — next to communication — positively
influences innovation (Hoegl and Gemuenden, 2001). Therefore, the degree of
diversity in a team also influences innovation. Value diversity in teams has been
found as the most important factor predicting team performance in national ho-
mogeneous teams (Kirkman and Shapiro, 2005). In this line, value diversity in
determinism has a positive effect on team cooperation which again is a factor of
positive influence on innovation (Hoegl and Gemuenden, 2001). Moreover, ethnic
diverse teams were found more cooperative than homogeneous Anglo-American

groups (Cox et al., 1991). Thus, cultural diversity can increase a climate of helping
and explaining. This climate will enforce the participative safety in a team (the
degree to which a team is participative in its decision-making procedures and how
psychologically safe team members feel) that in turn is an important factor for
team innovativeness (Anderson and West, 1996; West, 2002). Cultural back-
grounds or national diversity therefore have an effect on performance measures
and processing of information. Yet, it has not been investigated sufficiently if
cultural value diversity affects innovation and creativity.
Multi-cultural team work shows that diversity in cultural background has both
— effects that enhance creativity and innovation as well as effects that are harmful
for the quality of team work and thus for creativity and innovation. Figure 5
summarises propositions developed in our paper.
We found multiple effects of cultural diversity in teams that influence the
process which lead to a framework that differentiates between surface level and
deep level cultural differences. Nevertheless, our study implies that the innovation
process can be hindered in the beginning by cultural differences within teams.
Positive effects of different nationalities as a source of interesting conversations
and of self-reflection therefore oppose negative effects, which have their origins in
diversity of time, context, and power distance in particular.
Surface level cultural differences can be conquered relatively quickly. As team
members learn how to adapt to different work and communication styles faster,
they have the potential of being a source of intercultural competencies, which
facilitate future innovation projects. Whereas the management of surface level
diversity can reduce the harmful effects and leveraging the potential of culturally
embedded personal behaviour, cognitive styles, richer information, and team
motivators the deep-level diversity is a threat that largely remains and may even
increases as the project progresses. In particular, power distance which had the
highest potential for conflicts was found to harm team work quality and creativity.
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Fig. 5. Overview of propositions.
Fig. 6. Model of effects of multi-cultural team work on creativity and innovation.
1650012-26
Across time and by means of training, persons can change in this deep level
cultural value and thus reduce the negative effects of diversity related to power
distance. Other deep level cultural differences such as individualism, masculinity,
and uncertainty avoidance were not mentioned frequently leaving a high degree of
uncertainty respecting their effects.
Implications for theory

First of all, the finding of possible changes of cultural dimensions is striking and
has some important methodological implications. Cultural values so far were
considered as relatively stable over time and formed in early childhood (Adler,
2002). But here, even deep level cultural dimensions such as power distance seem
to have changed during a period of less than one year. Therefore we oppose the
view that culture is a static construct. Furthermore a new field of research can
derive out of this finding. As culture so far was often considered as independent
variable, now factors that lead to a change of cultural values can be explored
leading to a more holistic view of personality of individuals.
Further methodological conclusions have to be drawn from the lack of state-
ments concerning individualism, masculinity, and uncertainty avoidance. Al-
though it is possible that differences in the named dimensions are not existent or
important in our observed teams, a large body of research stresses the importance
of the dimension of individualism for a group’s preference towards goals, re-
sponsibility, training, self-management, etc. (Earley and Gibson, 1998). Even
though culture has been assessed by interviews (Gibson and Zellmer-Bruhn, 2001)
which was evaluated as a possible and valid method (Kirkman et al., 2006), they
seem to be insufficient to assess deep level cultural dimensions. It might be dif-
ficult for interviewees to perceive such differences in cultural values. For once,
team members usually meet in a well-defined setting such as meetings which
might influence behaviour. Next, behaviour of team members is directed towards a
goal, which might be even linked to individual rewards. At last, the interview
situation might bias answers. In order to explore effects of individualism, uncer-
tainty avoidance, and masculinity, it is therefore more advantageous to use a
method which identifies these dimensions in the first place: A questionnaire
method.
Another methodological suggestion can be drawn out of our research. Impor-
tant factors that influence the whole model as a moderator are personal char-
acteristics. Here the former experience of working together with people
from different nationalities influences the velocity of adapting to different com-
munication, working, and therefore cultural styles. Therefore existing research
on students in groups has severe limitations. We suggest adding international
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experience as a control factor in future laboratory experiments, or, better, to

conduct more field studies.
Implications for practitioners

As the innovation process is decelerated through conflicts that arise out of different
cultural backgrounds of team members, a company should carefully plan the kick-
off of the innovation project. Here enough time to get to know each other should
be calculated, especially if team members are lacking of cultural experience. Also,
a self-reflection on group processes and individual working styles, which picks
cultural issues as a central topic, may help accelerating the process in the future. If
resources are scarce, enough time in the evening for informal talks, which will
affect group cohesiveness positively, should be given. To help less experienced

team members, a system can be implemented that identifies “multi-cultural
experts” in the company and maybe at the same location, who can function as a
mentor. Moreover, psychological tests might be used to identify which team type
individuals are, and to use this information to ideal teams for group cohesiveness.
Out of the surface level cultural differences, time was the one that could cause
most severe problems especially if tasks are interdependent. But also organisa-
tional resources can influence whether people will finish their work on time. Here
the organisation has to donate enough resources and communicate the importance
of the project in relation to other work tasks. Then it becomes crucial to align
country goals with global goals.
Power distance, which has been found in this study as a source of differences
and conflicts, is one of the most important factors within innovation teams. A low
heterogeneity in power distance is optimal, but hard for a global company to
realise. Moreover, it is important not to staff a high power distant team leader with
a low power distant team. As studies have shown a non-controlling leadership
style as enhancing for creativity and innovation (Oldham and Cummings, 1996),
we suggest low power distance as a personal selection criterion for team leaders.
Furthermore, the team composition should at least mix team members with a high
and a low power distant style, as high power distant members will become less
power distant over time. This dimension is also the only one where we suggest a
dominating tendency of team members with low power distance, as it will facil-
itate and accelerate a change in this dimension with the high power distant team
member.
Furthermore, team leaders with teams from mixed cultures and a mixed
background in power distance have to be sensitive to different needs in dele-
gation and task explanations. They have to reinforce low power distant be-
haviour from high power distant team members. Likewise, conflicts can arise if
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the local supervisor of the extended team member has a high power distance,
because the team member is caught between different expectations. Here the
team leader has to identify team members in conflicting situations and agree
with the local supervisor upon decision spectrum and field of responsibilities of
the team member.
For differences in individualism, our point to start from was conflicting research
implying either high levels of individualism as beneficial for innovation (Shane,
1992) or neither high nor low levels of individualism or collectivism (Morris et al.,
1994). For multi-cultural team work, Morris et al.’s (1994) finding seems to be
more in line with our result. In order to lower the level individualism within multi-
cultural teams, a company should stress the team performance as a whole and
include this factor in individual reward systems. Also including organisational

citizenship behaviour (Organ and Ryan, 1995; Smith et al., 1983) in the reward
system could change individualism in the long term.
As cultural differences have many advantages and conflicts in teams usually
lead to a greater intercultural competency which is transferred to other situations as
well, we strongly recommend building multi-cultural teams to build creativity and
innovation. Also expatriation programs and short-term job rotations to different
countries can be a successful personnel strategy for global companies.
Limitations and further research

This paper is based on a quantitative research within a real-life context of com-
panies. As such, it is one of the first papers of its kind not using student samples
(like e.g., Watson, 1993). Hence, our results have a high relevance for firms of
different categories.
So far, our study is lacking quantification and thus empirical testing, although
the large amount of 70 interviews offers some possibilities that have to be taken in
further steps. The developed coding system has to be deployed by two indepen-
dent raters. Then inter-rater reliability has to be determined in order to account for
the objectivity of our data. Also, the large amount of data has the potential for
some further correlation analysis.
Company philosophy and culture might influence the results, even though team
members in our analysis were from distant cultures. Furthermore, diversity in
values might differ in the context of different countries. In addition, team inno-
vation enforcing factors by West (2002) and Hoegl and Gemuenden (2001) are
missing. Thus, our research could be replicated in companies who are located in
non-Western countries. Further insight might be feasible through long-term studies
in the timeframe of 5–10 years. Power distance, which has been found in this study
1650012-29
as a source of differences and conflicts, is one of the most important factors within
innovation teams.
Appendix: Interview Questionnaire

General information
(1) Your functional home department:

(2) Location of your home-base in the company:
(3) Your profession:
(4) Your nationality:
(5) In which country have you spent most of your life?

(6) Your 1st language:
(7) Your 2nd language:
(8) Gender:
(9) Age:
Project data
(1) Name of the project:

(2) Project description:
(3) Project start date:
(4) Project end date:
(5) In which phase is the project right now?
(6) Your dedication to the project (% of your total work time):
(7) When did you start working on the project?
(8) When will you end in this project?
(9) What does explain the project’s goals best?
(a) Completely new development (scale 1–5).
(b) Adaptation development (scale 1–5).
(c) Repositioning of an existing product (scale 1–5).
(d) Updated version of an existing product (scale 1–5).
Project team
(1) Number of team members:

(2) Number of nationalities represented:
(3) What and how many core team members are in your team?
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Questions
(1) How is the team organised?

(2) How are roles defined in the team?
(3) How are decisions made within the team?
(4) Do you see cultural differences between the team members?
(5) What are benefits of cross-cultural teamwork?
(6) What are problems of cross-cultural teamwork?
(7) Suggestions for BLUE?
(8) Anything else you would like to mention, particularly with reference to cre-
ativity and innovation?
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International Journal of Innovation Management

Vol. 20, No. 1 (January 2016) 1650012 (34 pages)

MULTI-CULTURAL TEAMS AS SOURCES FOR

Chair of Strategic Management and Organization

Published 19 June 2015

Keywords: Multi-cultural; creativity; innovation; cultural diversity; team performance.

(Kraus et al., 2014).

referred to as “BLUE”. In our study, we focus on cultural value differences

Creativity and innovation

and Kelly, 1999). Furthermore, the level of participation in decision-making (De

Dreu and West, 2001) enhances creativity or innovation.

Levels of diversity in multi-cultural teams

Effects on creativity through cultural values

research has not sufﬁciently demonstrated possible connections in a real setting in

Method and Sample

supervisor were interviewed. To track team transformations, interviews took place at

the advantages or problems mentioned in the interview). In the third step, we

Table 1. Overview of innovation project.

Sources of creativity and innovation

team through the multi-cultural teamwork. As an overall source of creativity, they

Fig. 1. Conceptual framework on effects of national diversity on creativity and innovation.

Also diversity in nationality will lead to a larger diversity in knowledge and

expertise. Woodman et al. (1993) argue knowledge is an important factor for

National diversity in a team seems to play a role as a motivational factor.

Sources of conﬂicts in cross-cultural teams

innovation. Therefore, we make the following proposition:

Therefore we see three negative effects of differences in context. First, direct

Proposition 6b. Differences in context will affect coordination negatively in the

Changes of surface level cultural-conﬂicts

Proposition 7. Diversity in time will lead to conﬂicts in time t ¼ 1 but to

positive effect on the innovativeness of a person.

Deep level conﬂicts in multi-cultural teams

ﬁrst problem was already mentioned in the chapter of moderating factors

to expectations, which are communicated explicitly or implicitly by the company.

Therefore, an inﬂuence of the environment on the dimension of power distance is

Fig. 4. Proposed development of power distance over time.

Additionally to differences in teams, we also observed concerning power dis-

Individualism. Individualism and collectivism were rarely mentioned during the

interviews. In two interviews, harmful elements of individualism became evident.

Both interviewees described the trait of individualism, which they perceived in

Uncertainty avoidance. As Hofstede and Hofstede (2005) argue, uncertainty

as well.. . . Switzerland is very conservative and France is a country, which has a

lead to a decrease of uncertainty avoidance in high uncertainty avoiding team

Masculinity. Masculinity seemed to be a cultural dimension where neither dif-

innovation process. Second, the degree of diversity is an important inﬂuence

diverse teams were found more cooperative than homogeneous Anglo-American

Fig. 5. Overview of propositions.

Fig. 6. Model of effects of multi-cultural team work on creativity and innovation.

Implications for theory

experience as a control factor in future laboratory experiments, or, better, to

Implications for practitioners

affect group cohesiveness positively, should be given. To help less experienced

include this factor in individual reward systems. Also including organisational

Limitations and further research

Appendix: Interview Questionnaire

(1) Your functional home department:

(5) In which country have you spent most of your life?

(1) Name of the project:

(1) Number of team members: