Multicultural and multinational teams have become an important strategic
and structural element of organizational work in our globalized world
today. These teams are demonstrating their importance from the factory
floors to the boardrooms of contemporary organizations. The emergence of
multicultural teams is evident across a variety of organizations in the
private, public, and civil society sectors. These developments have led
to an increasing interest in the theory and practice of multicultural
teams. Management educational and training programs are giving
increasing attention to these developments. At the same time, there is
emerging interest in research about and study of multicultural teams.
This book emerged from our teaching, research, and consulting with
multic- tural and diverse teams in multiple sectors over the last
several years. In particular, we have developed and refined our ideas
about the concepts in this book from teaching an advanced course called
Effective Multicultural Teams in the Graduate Program at the School for
International Training (SIT) in Vermont. We have learned from the rich
background of students who are from, and have worked in, six con- nents,
and who are, or plan to be, working in the public, educational,
not-for-profit, and for-profit sectors. Additionally, we have engaged
with a variety of teams through our consulting and training, providing
consultation to teams in a variety of sectors and continents as they
struggled to become more effective.
