Assignment Sample on MMP_7_ORG Organisational Behaviour in an International Context

Introduction

The following study is a reflective analysis of my experience working as a marketing manager at Unilever responsible for updating the marketing and sales division. I was responsible for handling a virtual team that included individuals working from various parts of the world. The following study aims to evaluate my experience while working in the company and thereby allows me to evaluate the organisational behaviour and experience in the international context. The study would shed light on the various aspects linked with multicultural teamwork challenges, conflicts, as well as the strategies that were adopted to mitigate these issues.

Self-learning on multicultural teamwork as a virtual team

Multicultural teamwork is considered an innovative approach to ensure service flexibility from an organisational perspective. The present changing dynamic business environment has been witnessing the toxic impact of the covid-19 pandemic due to which the aspects of virtual team working can be notified across the globe. In order to shed light on my own learning on multicultural teamwork as a virtual team, Belbin’s team role model can be undertaken. The theoretical understanding highlights different team roles and responsibilities that are segmented into three phases including action-oriented, people-oriented, and thought-oriented roles (Bednár and Ljudvigová, 2020).

Figure 1: Belbin team role model

(Source: Bednár and Ljudvigová, 2020)

While serving as a marketing and sales manager in a renowned global organisation, Unilever, I was benefited from a profound understanding of teamwork and the significance of maintaining collaboration in the workplace. I eventually started to feel as an integral part of the team, which also empowered my professional skills concerning the development of communication, critical thinking attributes, and others. It developed my role as an implementer where I was able to put up innovative ideas regarding the future moves to be undertaken. Moreover, I also undertook the role of coordinator and team leader where I initiated to encourage cooperation among respective team members. It played a major role to empower my existing communication skills due to which I obtained flexible interaction ability.

However, the role of coordination had also been supportive for empowering negotiation skills (Ding et al. 2020). As a result of this, I specifically look forward to develop my internal leadership attributes as a subsequent part of empowering my professional accountability. Moreover, I also initiated to play the role of resource investigator under the shape of people-oriented rules according to the model. Serving in the managerial post, I became familiar with the consideration of succession planning concerning the usage and allocation of valuable financial and non-financial resources in different marketing operations and activities. The existence of multicultural marketing and sales team had also helped to learn the significance of a diverse cultural workplace atmosphere that can be highly supported for future organisational growth (Bardmann, 2021).

On the other hand, I also undertook the responsibility to present emerging ideas and approaches in front of my subordinates regarding the upcoming marketing operations to be conducted on behalf of the organisation. This thought-oriented role opened up distinctive opportunities in front of me to consider the empowerment of critical thinking approaches and thereby providing a positive influence upon decision-making concerns (Lynch et al. 2018). With regards to this aspect, I was able to make my mark as a complete team man by maintaining profound collaboration and cooperation with other respective employees and my subordinates.

Description of challenges experienced

Different challenging circumstances were experienced by me while operating as the marketing and sales manager in Unilever. While maintaining a multicultural team, the topmost problem was language issue, which disrupted the overall communication among team members to some extent. The multicultural marketing and sales team included employees from different parts of the globe including China, Russia, Japan, India, Australia, and others. My team members from China and Russia are often notified to experience a language gap due to having inadequate flexibility in English. In this case, relational team works have been a barrier, which increased the potential threat for ensuring consistent development and growth of the team. It highlighted deliberate cultural issues within the team where the team members used to blame each other for the existing language gap. Stuchinskaya (2018) defined communication gap as the leading reason of ruining workplace flexibility. This factor eventually created a resistance for potential Chinese and Russian team members to efficiently interact and communicate with each other. The communication channel for ensuring rapid progress of work in a virtual manner and not been effective. As a result of this, the communication platform remained reluctant for a long period of time where my subordinates had to work over a communication gap.

I also experienced different challenges with the maintenance of time management while operating with a multicultural team under virtual surveillance. Operating within a multicultural virtual team, the topmost concern with time management highlighted the existence of global time differences. Sayari et al. (2017) stated that effective time management can ensure workplace success. It created a high massacre in front of me with the marketing and sales team where the completion of regular team operations had come at stake. For example, the Australian team member was not able to efficiently manage time for working with the Russian member. A time conflict took place in this case due to the global time difference, which eventually highlighted disrupted group operations. The operational flexibility of the marketing and sales team was also declining due to bad time management aspects. Chu et al. (2021) stated that inadequate operational flexibility can provide a direct and indirect influence upon the employees’ dedication and engagement on behalf of the organisational business values and objectives. I noticed the employees willfully not attending meetings, which eventually reflect bad time management from their end. However, it was also providing a negative influence upon the marketing and sales operational flexibility due to which the organisational competitive advantage was going down. The preparation of profound marketing plans was also getting difficult, as the employees from different countries are not able to determine a common time for digital interaction. The time difference in different countries had also played its part in this case where the employees clearly stated that they are not willing to comply with others’ time.

Strategies to mitigate challenges

Adequate strategic interventions were considered by me as an integral part of mitigating the mentioned challenges. With regards to this concern, I specifically applied Tuckman’s teamwork theory that had played a helpful role to ensure prolific employee engagement by avoiding time management, language gap, communication related problems, and others.

Figure 2: Tuckman’s team development model

(Source: Hildebrandt and Marr, 2020)

The theory has highlighted five different phases of teamwork including forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning (Jones, 2019). The most lucrative feature of this theory highlights encounter in different problems within different developmental stages. In this case, I was benefited during the storming stage where I made the employees feel themselves as the most valuable part of the team. It helped by enlarging their motivation level due to which I noticed improvement in time management within the marketing and sales team members. Moreover, the norming stage eventually helped to make the team members come and work together and improve the existing communication skills by avoiding the concerns of the language gap. Team members were eventually motivated and encouraged with the elimination of cultural issues each of them faced and determined to work in a collaborative manner for complying with the organisational business objectives.

Incidence of conflict

In case of conflict, it was identified that while the development of a particular marketing campaign was going on, the individuals working in the Japanese team had a conflict with the decisions and choices made by the Chinese team. The problem in this area was a Japanese team had a specific design for the market communication plan however the Chinese team came up with a different target communication plan and both of these teams believed that their communication plan would work out better in the global context. As a result, none of them could agree with each other in terms of deciding whose marketing campaign strategy would be taken into consideration for the company. Throughout my experience working as a marketing manager in the team, I have seen that the Chinese and Japanese teams have been constantly working against each other. The conflict between these two teams led to delays in several plans and was causing a lack of collaborative teamwork as well as delays in terms of decision-making. However, collaboration and teamwork are some of the most important aspects linked with efficient management of global teams (Batkhina, 2017). Based on the concepts of schema theory internal conflicts can repeat and reoccur causing severe issues in case of project implementation and execution, which on the other hand can cause the company a considerable amount of resources. The schema theory depicts that individuals react to a particular situation based on the experience of thier previous interaction (Wilterson and Graziano, 2021). Hence, ones a conflict occuers due to cultural diversity it might reoccur causing inter organisational issues.

Not only that, but there were also language barriers between the Chinese and Japanese teams as both of them were adamant about not agreeing with each other’s proposition in every single meeting that we had as a virtual team. It did not take me long to understand that the Chinese and Japanese teams were having a cultural conflict with each other. Therefore, the resolution of this cultural conflict was necessary in order to ensure that collaboration and agreement between these two teams can be achieved (Dai and Chen, 2017).

Figure 3: Hofstede cultural dimensions of China and Japan

(Source: Hofstede, 2021)

Based on Hofstede cultural dimensions it can be identified that the organisational culture of the Japanese team and the Chinese team was significantly different in terms of individualism and uncertainty avoidance. The Japanese team had some beliefs and ideas and has always been opposing unorthodox ideas (Hofstede, 2021). On the other hand, the Chinese team always came up with new ideas that were previously not thought of. As a result, conflict regarding the market communication plan increased.

Measures for overcoming conflict

In terms of strategy, it is mainly linked with resolving the problems between these two teams I decided to hold a joint meeting between the Chinese and the Japanese teams to particularly identify the problems that these two teams were having with each other. For any leader to resolve an internal conflict it becomes essential to understand the perspective and issues faced by both sides involved in the conflict (Matori et al. 2018). In this regard, I identified that the Japanese team was more reluctant to use designs and concepts that were formal and had a minimalistic appearance. The justification that the Japanese team provided for this aspect was the fact that such designs and concepts appeal to a large number of individuals and may help the organisation to attract new customers; while on the other hand, the Chinese team had a highly specific and trendy looking market communication plan. The risk linked with the Chinese communication plan was the fact that there was no assurance if this plan would deliver as per the organisation’s objectives. Therefore, I negotiated between both the teams and reflected the consequences of failures of this market communication plan and the amount of financial losses the organisation would incur if the Chinese team does not deliver. While on the other hand I also explain the advantages of the Japanese market communication plans to the Chinese team, therefore, helping them to understand the importance of achieving a successful result from this market communication project. As a result, an agreement was reached upon by both the teams helping to resolve the conflict and carry forward with the project.

Conclusion

The overall report has highlighted different reflective understanding concerning self-learning on multicultural teamwork within a virtual team. Along with experiencing different beneficial understandings regarding team working and the maintenance of multicultural team, different challenges are eventually highlighted including the consequences of language gap, bad time management, global time difference, and others. In order to avoid these challenges, Tuckman’s team development model was considered by me where I was able to ensure the active involvement of the team members by eliminating the issues faced. A potential conflict was also noticed between the Japanese and Chinese team members, which were resolved by me through direct interaction, and profound negotiation.

References

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Sayari, K., Jalagat, R. and Dalluay, V., 2017. Assessing the relationship of time management and academic performance of the business students in Al-Zahra College for women. European Business & Management, 3(1), pp.1-8.

Stuchinskaya, E.A., 2018. Efficient Business Communication: Ways to Eliminate Linguistic Gaps. Наука и образование: новое время, (3), pp.661-664.

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