Framing the Effects of Multinational Cultural Diversity on Virtual Team Processes

Abstract

Globalization of the economy and the technological revolution has led to increased reliance on teams with geographically distributed membership, which has increased multiculturalism in the workplace. This study identifies factors that affect the processes and performance of nationally and culturally diverse teams working in a virtual environment. A systematic review of the literature was conducted to identify previous empirical studies in global virtual team research published from 1998 to 2014, focusing on the effects of deep diversity in the form of national culture on multinational virtual teams (MNVTs). Sixty of the 268 articles met our criteria for inclusion in this study. We concentrated on the critical factors regarding processes and outcomes in MNVTs. The resulting framework included four socioemotional and four task-related challenges for team leaders to focus on. We found that dynamic interdependency among socioemotional and task process factors affects MNVT performance.