Diversity Management in Global Teams: A Multi-contextual Approach

This study is based on in-depth interviews in a successful diverse team in a Japanese subsidiary of an American multinational corporation. While this study exemplifies both processes of homogenization and diversification in global team communication, the focus is an investigation of global, national, organization, professional and individual influences on team collaboration.
It answers the following questions: what are the alignments of corporate diversity strategies in different national contexts (here US and Japan) –between headquarter and subsidiary? How are corporate strategies implemented in the local organization? How are organizational culture, vision and images aligned with the team processes to accomplish the task? Does professional (functional) expertise influence team collaboration and finally how do individual experiences
and coping strategies matter? The US and Japan provide interesting contexts. The US is the forerunner in diversity management. Japan is a late mover. However, recently gender issues have received political attention as Prime Minister Abe has announced political efforts to place women in 30 per cent of management positions in the workforce in 2020 to secure economic growth. This study contributes with a multi-contextual model to understand the complexity of dissemination processes from global to local. The diversity attributions in focus are nationality, functional expertise, experience and gender.