1. The Relationship Between Multicultural Teams and Project Performance
Sayed Mahdi FADHUL

2. Outline 1. Research Background 2. Research Rationale
3. Statement of Research Problem
4. Aim
5. Impact of Culture
6. Framework
7. Findings
8. Conclusion

3. Globalisation Research Background
. The world has become a global village now.
. teams are getting to be more diverse in their composition,
. team members from various countries and
. distinct cultural backgrounds doing work closely together.
(Adler, 1997; Hofstede, 1991; Maddox, 1993).
Managing cultural diversity has become a significant element of today's organisation
Recently, there is a broad understanding of the necessity to deal with diversity in all kinds of organisations and to recognise the benefits and difficulties for different agents engaged
(Kochan, Bezrukova & Ely, 2003; Dietz & Petersen, 2006; McKay, Avery & Morris, 2009).
they probably speak distinct ‘languages’ and grew up in distinct places that could have distinct norms and values. Therefore, it is worth addressing that today’s organisations should understand and recognise the possible effects of diversity on the team’s performance (Nam et al., 2009).

4. Research Rationale
Numerous researchers have studied and investigated culture in projects
(Barthorpe et al., 2000; 1999; Earley & Erez, 1997; Kandola and Fullerton, 1998; Meek 1998, and Ochieng and Price , 2013)
assert that our understanding of cross-cultural management factors on multi-cultural project teams is:
inadequately developed
and somewhat limited.
Furthermore, there are limited theoretical and empirical studies concerning how the cultural diversity could impact on team performance.
(Mannix and Neale, 2005; Moon, 2013; Nakui et al., 2011; Van Knippenberg and Schippers, 2007).

5. Statement of Research Problem
The researches in the area of people management show that
there is a lack of study of the cultural aspects of management of people
and it appears as an emerging topic
and the current literature not taking into consideration the specificity of managing effective multicultural project teams.
(Ancona & Isaacs, 2007; Rodrigues & Sbragia, 2013; Stahl et al., 2010).
The above point towards problems caused in managing culturally diverse workforce and their performance. Literature further highlights that this problem is even more pronounced in different context.
Ochieng & Price (2010), Stahl (2010) and Irina & Vrânceanu (2014) confirm that there is still a need for further study to investigate the cultural influences and factors affecting the teams dynamics and project performance.

6. Aim
This study aims to investigate the cultural factors that influence the multicultural project team performance and determine the cultural dimensions that would impact on the project performance.

7. Impact of Culture
Researchers have often reported conflicting finding about the team's composition, whether the cultural diversity can affect on its performance.
Several researchers claim that the diverse teams have shown to outperform the homogenous teams.
(Bantel, 1994; Comu et al., 2010; Daily, Loveland, & Steiner, 1997; Jackson, 1992; Ochieng & price, 2010; Watson)
Williams and O’Reilly’s (1998) study reviewed about 40 years of diversity studies; they came to the conclusion that there is no constant major effect of diversity on performance.
Stahl et al. (2010) has conducted a meta-analysis of 108 empirical studies in performance in about 10,632 teams.

8. Culture vs Team
Lack of knowledge to manage well culturally diverse workforce is a major gap in the literature as multiple factors seem to affect the management of the multicultural teams.
Bebenova-Nikolova (2014)
The disagreement between these reviewed researches raises essential concerns in regards to the characteristics of this issue and how best to analyse and investigate it.

9. Culture vs. Performance
Previous research studies showing the relationship between National Culture and Team Performance (Dynamics).

10. Research Framework Team Performance Trust Power Distance
Knowledge Sharing
Uncertainty Avoidance
Integration
Masculinity vs Femininity
Time
Individualism vs Collectivism
Quality
Cost
Communication
Culture Dimensions
Project Performance
Independent Variable
Mediators
Dependent Variable

11. Framework
A conceptual framework is developed in order to address the cultural complexity within multicultural project teams and examine the relationship between national culture and team and project performance.
The framework is expected to provide the crucial factors to be investigated in the context of projects management.

12. Conclusion
Lack of knowledge about managing cultural differences successfully is a major challenge in achieving successful performance in projects. Choosing not to gain knowledge and understand the cultural differences complexity limits the chance to control performance.
The above argument is supported by the first analysis conducted by Hofstede (1980) who proposed that 80 percent of the cultural differences in the employee's behaviours and attitudes are influenced by national culture which still has resonance nowadays.

13. Questions?