IBM’s Multicultural Multinational Teams
1. If you calculate the person-hours devoted to IBM’s team projects, they amount to more than 180000 hours of management time each year. Do you think this is a wise investment of IBM’s human resources why or why notPersonally from my standpoint I think that it is a wise investment for IBM. The teamwork approach takes more time and more resources than individual work, the work of IBMs group would be better done in teams because it would benefit the culture of the organization. Multinational teams help lay out the groundwork for opening up business in emerging economies. Stanley Litow also feels this is a good investment because these teams will develop multicultural team skills as well as an appreciation of local markets.
2. Why do you think IBM’s culture changed from formal, stable, and individualistic to informal, impermanent, and team orientedMaslow suggests that in order to fulfill self-actualization all the other needs must be fulfilled before they can take the next step. So by moving towards a more informal, impermanent and team oriented culture, IBM is giving employees a chance to feel appreciated and valued as a result employees are motivated and are able to reach self-actualization. Employees are open to challenging themselves. By providing employees with less formal and more informal work environment this gives the employees to find new ways of doing things which they find easier and save them time. Patterns of interaction are shaped by friendship groups and other and people find it easier to work with informal structures. When there is division between the roles of the leader (management) and the followers (employees) and individualism is the central point in making decisions it will be less creative than decisions made in a team. There is still the title in the roles of managers and employees, but everyone is more unified. By switching informal and, impermanent and, team oriented work environment, the…