ABSTRACT
Teams that straddle geographies and cultures have become part of working life. But cross-cultural working can be fraught with the unexpected, even when nations might super cially seem similar. ink back to the example of Finland and Sweden. Both countries fall into GLOBE’s Nordic Europe culture cluster, and given their geographic proximity, you might expect culture to in uence their ways of working in very similar ways. However, as we have seen, there are some marked di erences between the two cultures when it comes to ways of working. Cultural di erences between groups of people are not necessarily a problem, but when problems do occur, they can create di culties in terms of teamwork, communication, motivation, or coordination. ere is no single “best practice”
for dealing with this, because how individuals interact in a group is highly contextual. Typically, leaders can choose a single management style when working in a single country. For example, in individualistic, low power distance countries such as Canada or Australia, using a participative leadership style can result in higher employee engagement and productivity. On the other hand, choosing to apply this style in countries that view power di erently could be a blunder.
