ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses how transnational teams come into being and how they are used. It presents a comprehensive model of team effectiveness that includes the key characteristics differentiating a transnational team from other types of work teams. The chapter utilizes the model to show how transnational teams operate—how they are staffed and led, communicate across great distances, and cope with cross-cultural issues. It describes how a company’s human resources department can help an “international” or “multinational” team become a “transnational” team—one that has successfully transcended the cultural, geographic, and managerial barriers to team effectiveness. A transnational team is contributing to a company’s efforts to globalize—to extend the firm’s products and operations into international markets. Global competitive strategies are complex and expensive, and they are often administered best by a transnational team of managers and specialists whose talents have been carefully blended.
