10th EURAM 2010, May 19-22, Rome, Italy
Leveraging the Positive in Multicultural Teams (Track 22)
Call for Papers
Paper submissions are due by December 7, 2009. For submission guidelines see www.euram2010.org.
The aim of this track is to explore management models and practices that leverage the strengths of multicultural teams. Research on multicultural teams is abundant. However, most of this research has focused on dysfunctional cross-cultural dynamics among team members and on prescriptions of how to avoid and control these negative behaviors. In contrast, researchers have expended little effort on investigating the positive characteristics of multicultural teams and how they can be utilized for the welfare of the teams, their members and organizations.
This year's conference theme urges researchers to investigate management models and practices that are different from the ones that led the global economy into the current crisis. This charge echoes the call by researchers in the field of positive organizational scholarship who challenge the conventional belief that good management consists of maintaining order and seeking conformity. Positive organizational scholarship contends that management researchers have long overlooked organizational dynamics that develop human strengths, produce resilience and restoration, foster vitality, and cultivate extraordinary individuals, teams and organizations.
In this research track, we want to invite submissions that focus on unexamined and underexplored positive aspects of cross-cultural dynamics in multicultural teams. This focus is particularly important since the use of both co-located and virtual multicultural teams has become the modus operandi in many organizations, despite the fact that operating in situations of cultural diversity is often perceived as difficult. It would seem that the net effect of using multicultural teams is beneficial and that one reason for this outcome is that multicultural teams can help multinational organizations master the inherent complexities associated with multinational and multicultural operations.
For this track, we are inviting theoretical and empirical papers that address these or similar questions:
· How does effective collaboration in multicultural teams differ between co-located and geographically dispersed teams?
· How do learning, language and leadership affect the context of interpersonal interaction and team dynamics in multinational teams?
· How does knowledge sharing contribute to the resilience and vitality of multinational teams and social networks, and how do multicultural teams contribute to intra-firm knowledge sharing?
· How can organizations leverage multiculturalism for the benefit and performance of individuals, groups, and organizations?
· What are new better ways to understand and measure multicultural team performance?
· What are the key competencies required to participate in and lead multicultural teams?
· What are the most effective ways to teach these key multicultural team leadership competencies to new generations of employees?
We envision that a selection of the papers will be published in a monograph or special journal issue.
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Markus Vodosek, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Management
David Eccles School of Business
University of Utah
1645 E. Campus Center Drive #106
Salt Lake City, UT 84112-9304
Tel. (801) 585-9546
Fax (801) 585-5966
markvodo@gmail.com
www.business.utah.edu/~mgtmv
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