Case Study:

Multicultural
Multinational Teams at
IBM
By: Muhammad Nabeel Akhter Khan
Reg ID: 27153
Date: April 24, 2015
Course: Organizational Behavior
Program: MBA
Submitted To: Dr. Siraj Jamal Siddiqui

ANALYSIS OF THE CASE:

This case study talks about the effectiveness of multicultural and
multinationals teams and how these teams have helped IBM to win business
and growth opportunities in the long run. IBM used to have a focus on
individual accomplishments in the past with traditional ways of doing
business but with the passage of time IBM grew its business outside the U.S
and now have clients in over 170 countries. The growth has forced them to
change the traditional style of business and to form cross-cultural teams to
be successful in winning business in different parts of the world. There are
many benefits of having a multicultural teams as the members of the team
belong to different cultures, they have knowledge about other cultures, the
different style of communications which can create a lot of confusion and
every member has a different set of skills which they bring as a benefit to
the team. IBM has managed to capture emerging markets and build a huge
customer-base because of effective multicultural and multinational teams
who have worked together successfully in many countries such as Turkey,
Tanzania, Vietnam, Ghana and Philippines etc. The case also highlights the
experiences of two team members of IBM multicultural team who share how
they had helped international firms and how their advised made these firms
more productive.

Answers to Questions:
Question:
1. If you calculate the person-hours devoted to IBMs team
projects, they amount to more than 180,000 hours of
management time each year. Do you think this is a wise
investment of IBMs human resources? Why or why not?
Answer: In my opinion, it is a very wise investment because the teams
have helped IBM to expand globally by bringing new clients from across the
world and these teams also helped many international organizations such as
GreenForest to become more productive. Teamwork is an essential skill in
todays fast changing global environment and all the successful organization
in todays world such as Google, Apple and IBM are investing heavily on
multicultural and multinational teams with members from different cultures
possessing different competencies and skills. The employees of IBM who
were part of these teams got a chance to learn about different culture which
enabled them to work effectively in a distant culture. These team based
projects also helped them to learn leadership skills and the members also
had a chance to learn from their fellow members different competencies and
skills of various backgrounds.
The return on investment on the teams is very high and their success in
different parts of the world is a proof that the human resources of IBM have
made a wise decision to invest in multicultural and multinational teams.

2. Why do you think IBMs culture changed from formal, stable,

and individualistic to informal, impermanent, and teamoriented?
Answer:

The formal stable and individualistic culture is good for a static

organization working within a limited geographical boundaries. But for an

organization, which is expanding its business in many countries and

becoming a multinational firm, stable culture is not the ideal way of doing
business. Since IBM grew its business in 170 countries, it is necessary for
them to adapt to the needs and requirements of these different cultures and
to cope up with the challenges of foreign business assignments, IBM had to
follow team-oriented approach as diversified teams are ideal for being
successful in dynamic and fast changing external environments. Firms who
operate in many countries require quick decision making and knowledge of
the local laws and cultures and team-oriented style of working enable the
team members to take decisions instantly and they dont have to wait for the
approval from the headquarters for the decision. Whereas in stable and
formal organizations, decisions can only be made after the approval from the
directors and managers in the headquarters. Therefore, IBM has done the
right thing by changing its culture from individualistic to team-oriented style.

3. Would you like to work on one of IBMs multicultural,

multinational project teams? Why or why not?
Answer: Yes, I would like to work for multicultural, multinational project
teams for the following reasons:

By working with other highly competent members of the team, I will

have the opportunity to learn various competencies and skills from

them which will help me in my career.

I will also have the opportunity to visit different countries and learning

about different cultures and their lifestyles.

It will help me to develop leadership skills which is the single most

required skills in todays challenging business world to be successful.

I will also get the opportunity to practically learn the group decisionmaking process, the art of group cohesion and effective teamwork
skills.

4. Multicultural project teams often face problems with

communication, expectations, and values. How do you think
some of these challenges can be overcome?

Answer: Multicultural teams often generate frustrating management

dilemmas. Every member belongs to a different background and these
cultural differences can create obstacles in effective teamwork. The
challenge in managing these cultural issues is to identify the causes of these
conflicts. There are several ways to overcome these challenges.

Adaptation will work when the team members acknowledge the

differences and finding out ways to understand and respect the
differences. When team members have this mindset, they can be
creative about protecting their own substantive differences and
respecting others too. This process of adaptation is ideal because it
involves less managerial time because the team members solve their

problems themselves.
The team can be reorganized or redesigned to reduce the conflict from
the group. If there are interpersonal differences, then the manager or
the leader of the team should arrange a dialogue among the conflicting

members to allow them to resolve the issue in a productive manner.

Feedback is also an important factor in removing the cultural conflicts
from the team. Some culture have very open style of communication
while other cultures are not comfortable in open communication. It is
therefore necessary to ask for feedbcack from all the members of the
team to make sure everyone has clearly understood the assignment
and the procedure that is going to be followed by the group.