Culture and performance of global-project teams: A study in Brazilian multinational companies

The internationalization of Brazilian companies brings a new reality: the need for implementation of global projects. These, in turn, carry in their essence the challenge of managing multicultural teams. Being a recent phenomenon, with little theoretical development, this study aim to understand the relationships between cultural features and performance of project teams in global projects of Brazilian multinationals, in contexts of high and low cultural distance. Once these relations were identified, we tried to understand them in light of the teams management process. To carry out this discussion, we undertook a field study, with both quantitative and qualitative focus, of 34 global projects of 15 Brazilian multinationals, in which people from 22 countries took part. The results provided empirical evidence that there is an association between cultural characteristics and team performance, with femininity and hierarchical proximity being the standout. The first one would be more associated with low performance and culturally homogeneous teams. Hierarchical proximity is associated with high performance and culturally heterogeneous teams. These results show that individual and organizational intercultural competence gain importance. Final recommendations are made in order to help Brazilian multinational companies to manage their global teams and thereby achieve better results in their global projects.