2016 bystrom frida thesis leadership styles cultural differences pdf

Paris College of Art

Leadership Styles and Culture Differences in Multicultural Creative Teams A Senior Thesis by Bystrom, Frida

Presented to the Department of Design Management in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Bachelor of Business in Design Management Paris College of Art May, 2016

Accepted by Jarvin, Linda, Dean of Paris College of Art

Abbas, Yasmine, Chair of Design Management

Jensen, Karina, Thesis Advisor

Serena, Maurizio, Jury Member

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Senior Thesis: Frida Bystrom

Paris College of Art

ABSTRACT The purpose of this thesis is to investigate collaboration issues, cultural differences and communication, particularly within creative organizations. The literature review is divided in four sections, multicultural organizations, creative team processes, leadership styles and intercultural communication.

My research question is to evaluate and identify leadership styles most applicable to creative teams. For my research, I performed semi-structured interviews with professionals that had vast international work experience in the field.

My conclusion is that a most factors Global Leadership consists of - Collective Creative Process and Global Mindset, alongside a mix of Creative Leadership styles - is the most suitable form of leadership to manage creative teams.

Part of my thesis was also to create a project providing a solution that could be implemented within creative organizations in order to intercultural sensibilities and understandings amongst the member of the organization. After a series of explorations, the final proposed solution is a gamification tool that can simplify or eliminate cultural and communicational problems and, in addition, enhance creativity and motivation in a multicultural organization. COMgame, which stands for ‘Unifying culture, communication and teamwork’, wants to be an aid to foster mutual cultural understanding when collaborating with other ‘players’ in the global arena.

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Senior Thesis: Frida Bystrom

Paris College of Art

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to acknowledge Paris College of Art and the Design Management Department for giving me this opportunity.

I would like to thank Karina Jensen, my mentor, for her knowledge and advice.

I would like to thank Maurizio Serena, my in-class advisor, for his support.

Lastly I would like to thank my parents who always believed in me, even when I didn’t.  

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TABLE OF CONTENT

Senior Thesis: Frida Bystrom

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Paris College of Art

I Introduction

A. Purpose

B. Aim & Research Question

C. Demarcation

9 9 9 9

II Literary Review

A. Multicultural Organization

1.The Role of Culture

2. Multicultural Organization

3.Linguistic Effects on Multicultural Organizations

B. Creativity, Teams & Organizations

1. Team Leadership & Team Collaborations

2. The Creative Workplace

3. Creative Work Process

4. Design Thinking

C. Leadership styles

1. Management Style vs. Leadership Style

2. Different Leadership Styles

3. Global Leadership

3.1 Collective Creative Process

3.2 Global Mindset

4. Creative Leadership

5. Cross-Culture Team Management

D. Intercultural Communication

1. Definition of Intercultural Communication

2. Key Elements of Intercultural Communication

3. Intercultural Communication’s Effect on Leadership

4. Intercultural Communication & Collaborations

11 11 11 11 11 12 12 12 13 13 14 14 14 15 15 16 19 20 23 23 23 23 23

III Methodology

A. Theoretical Basis

B. Interview Study

1. Data Collection & Analysis

2. Presentation

27 27 27 27 27

VIII Project

A. Introduction

1. Key Insights

2. Goal

41 41 41 41

IX Gamification

A. Background Research

1. Gamification Progression

2. Importance of Innovation

3. Behavior

4. The Fields of Gamification

B. Trends

C. Users

D. Benchmarking

43 43 43 44 44 44 44 45 46

X COMgame

A. Proposal

B. COMgame Before Collaborations

C. COMgame During Collaborations

D. Reward System

E. Personas

1. Emily Brown

2. Antonio Martinez

3. Charles Walker

49 49 49 49 49 49 50 50 51

IV Results

A. Multicultural Organization

B. Creativity, Teams & Organizations

C. Leadership Styles

D. Intercultural Communication

29 29 29 30 30

V Analysis & Discussion

A. Multicultural Organization

B. Creativity, Teams & Organizations

C. Leadership Styles

D. Intercultural Communication

33 33 33 34 34

XI Prototype

A. Prototype Development

1. Website

2. Multiple Choice

3. Rewards

4. Teambuilding

53 53 53 53 53 53

VI Recommendations

37

XII Testing

55

VII Conclusion

39

XIII Conclusion

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Senior Thesis: Frida Bystrom

Paris College of Art

This paper will be a guide to easier understand leadership style based on four factors: communication and cultural differences in multicultural organizations and creativity, with a specific focus on culture differences and communication within a creative team.

In today’s globalized work structure, communication issues and culture differences are ever present. An organization cannoy simply ignore the importance of understanding different cultures and communication anymore. Just a few years ago intercultural communication was a subject that managers and leaders took into much account when leading their team (Lustig & Koster, 2006). Intercultural communication in its purest form means, “a symbolic, interpretive, transactional, contextual process in which people from different cultures create shared meanings.”1 More and more research is now being conducted on the importance of culture and communication in organizations which is clearly positive. Managers and leaders have a responsibility to oversee communication and cultural issues, which means that when collaborating with other multicultural organizations they need to be aware of their own team and its cultural background as well as the opposing teams background. Trust and communication are key factors when collaborating with other multinational teams, and as Bird & Osland states “developing trust is an issue that has to be resolved in any multicultural collaboration. If sources of conflicts can be identified, then it may be possible to resolve them.”2

I. INTRODUCTION

Not only are communication and culture differences important factors in a multicultural organization, but a strong leader is key to a functioning organization. Michael Maccoby (2000) describes management and leadership nicely: companies need good management and great leaders to successfully develop a company. Leaders are important since an organization can change simply based on feedback from the leader. Leaders have such responsibility in an organization; employees follow their leader based on fear, excitement, trust and opportunities etc. (Maccoby, 2000). Based on the literature I have reviewed, there are different leadership styles that can be applied to multicultural organizations: ‘global leadership’ and ‘creative leadership’. These are just a few of the leadership styles that can be investigated, however they are the most applicable leadership styles to examine in order to understand which leadership styles accompany culture differences and communications in a creative team the most.

Cultures respond differently to leadership styles, just like individuals respond differently to leadership styles, hence one style is not necessarily the right one. As stated already, the globalized workplace is in need of knowledge about communication and culture differences, however there is another factor that should be applied when looking at the overall possibility of enhancing an organization - creativity.

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1 Myron W. Lustig, Jolene Koster, Intercultural Competence (Pearson Education Inc., 2006), 46.

2 Allan Bird, Joyce S. Osland, Making Sense of Intercultural Collaboration (M. E. Sharpe, 2005-6), 116.

Creativity has for a long time been seen as something unmanageable and elusive (Amabile & Khaire, 2008).

However, it is just as important to make space for creativity as other key factors in an organization. If employees are allowed the space to be creative, while supported by their leaders, they tend to be more creative (Amabile & Khaire, 2008).

A. Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate collaboration issues, cultural differences and communication, particular in terms of creativity. Research will be divided up in four sections and it will focus on multicultural organizations, creative team processes, leadership styles and intercultural communication.

Different leadership styles will be investigated, cultural differences within a multicultural team will be examined; as well as the problems that can arise through these cultural differences and the way communication is valued, believed and assumed by the members of the organization. This investigation is to figure out what type of collaboration issues can appear and what culture differences and communication issues can do to creative teams. This investigation will hopefully result in providing some answers that can enhance a creative multicultural team. No matter what issues an organization is faced with, this investigation’s goal is to find the best possible solution to run an organization in the most efficient way.

Based on the result of my literary findings the scope of my project would be to create an artifact that companies needing to manage multicultural teams benefit from using. . The idea would be to apply the principles of gamification, “gamification as a tool for empowerment (and not only engagement) achievable and understandable by everyone, as a design methodology that balances performance, fun and meaning in our jobs, lives, products and services.” 3 B. Aims & Objectives The aim of this study is to evaluate how to smoothly and positively lead a globally multicultural creative team through communication issues and culture differences. Therefore my research question is to evaluate and identify leadership styles most applicable to creative teams.

C. Demarcation Due to the large and extensive research areas as well as the limited time span, it is important to notify that all research of each field; multicultural organizations, creativity, leadership styles and intercultural communication will not be covered in the literary review. The literature that has been chosen has been done so out of its outmost importance in order for me to answer my purpose. My research question was based on chosen literature.

3 About this course [essay on-line]; available from https://iversity.org/ en/courses/gamification-design-2015; Internet: accessed 20 October 2015

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Senior Thesis: Frida Bystrom

Paris College of Art

A. Multicultural Organizations 1. The Role of Culture “Cultures are not so much what they are as what they are believed to be” (Czarnaiawska-Joerges, 1992) One of the first scholars to acknowledge the word culture was the anthropologist Edward T Hall. According to Hall culture is the way of life for people, their sum of learned behavior patterns, attitudes and material things. He states, however, that most of the anthropologists would disagree on what the precise substance of culture actually is (Hall, 1959). Current researches shows two visible mainstreams on the subject of culture: 1. Emphasis on homogeneity and cultural sameness 2. Emphasis on fragmentation and sub cultural isolation The word “culture” refers to a group, organization or community, which has common experiences that shape the way they understand the world. It includes groups that we are born into, based on gender, race or national origin. It also includes groups we join or become part of (Geerts, 1973).

II. LITERARY REVIEW In this chapter I aim to describe in further detail the four factors; communication, cultural differences, leadership and creativity that this paper will focus on. Through historical content and current literature I intend to evaluate and identify leadership styles most applicable to creative teams.

2. Multicultural Organizations With the rapid rise of multinational and global interactions, the multicultural team has become more common and more important (Stahl, Mäkelä, Zander & Maznevski, 2010).

‘Multicultural Organizations’ are a fairly under researched field (Lauring & Selmer, 2009) however it has been a central focus of research for many years in the international business context (Stahl et al., 2010).

Historically when talking about multicultural organizations they are referred to as organization based on different languages, while in today’s society it is rather defined as “ a group of people from different cultures, with a joint deliverable for the organization or another stakeholder.”4 A multicultural group of people is not only thought of as working together, it is “often argued to hold potential knowledge resources that can be used to increase performance” 5 In modern times multicultural organizations are often overemphasized by current theory and research, as something problematic and barrier driven rather than potentially enriching cultural encounters and interactions (Stahl et al., 2010).

The ‘Cultural Distance Hypothesis’ (Stahl et al., 2010) states in its most general form; “The cultural distance hypothesis proposes that the difficulties, costs, and risks associated with cross-cultural contact increase with growing cultural dissimilarity between two or more individuals, groups, or organizations.” 6

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4 Günter K. Stahl, Kristiina Mäkelä, Lena Zander, Martha L. Maznevski, A Look at the Bright Side of Multicultural Team Diversity, (Scandinavian Journal of Business, 2010), 439.

5 Jakob Lauring, Jan Selmer, Multicultural Organizations: Common Language, Knowledge Sharing and Performance (Emerald Group Publishing Limited, 2009), 324.

6 Stahl et al., “A Look at the Bright Side of Multicultural Team Diversity” (2010): 440.

Whilst recent research has shown the negative aspects on multicultural organizations are quite extensive, however some scholars have distributed literature on potential profitable effects. These include: • Cultural differences helping firms engage in cross-border alliances, mergers and acquisitions to develop unique and potentially valuable capabilities • Foster learning and innovation • Counterbalancing negative aspects • Contributing positively to organizational outcomes In simple terms “cultural differences among team members can be both an asset and a liability.” 7 3. Linguistic Effects on Multicultural Organizations In a multicultural organization where different cultures are ever-present, the linguistic and cultural differences make things like communication and comprehension particularly challenging. There have been a large amount of studies based on the human heterogeneity on different areas of organizational performance and group interaction (Lauring & Selmer, 2009). Based on these studies it is clear that there are both strengths and weaknesses in a multicultural team. A multicultural team share different aspects within the fields of linguistic, social, cultural and national background, hence adding an extra layer of experience as well as an extra layer of challenges.

As mentioned, a multicultural organization that is fundamentally based on a diverse culture, the team is multilingual. Having several different languages in one organization can create friction and problems, thus introducing a common language; communication frequency can be increased (Lauring & Selmer, 2009).

Linguistic differences can play a major role on multicultural organizations; “Organizational diversity in terms of linguistic differences is likely to play an important role in interaction and performance of any group (Piekkari, 2005; Lauring, 2008) show that individuals often group along language boundaries in multinational organizations and that language differences may explain why some organization members are isolated from important knowledge exchanges. Similar results are provided by (Mäkelä et al., 2007) who demonstrate how language dissimilarities can be a driver of uneven patterns of interaction and knowledge sharing in multicultural settings.

Language differences have been argued to affect interaction and performance negatively due to inadequate language skills and group formation.”8 Based on this excerpt, whilst it is clear that language and communication are paramount factors in a diverse team, it is however seen by various studies so far as a rather negative aspect.

7 Stahl et al., “A Look at the Bright Side of Multicultural Team Diversity” (2010): 440.

8 Lauring et al., “Multicultural Organizations” (2009): 327

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Senior Thesis: Frida Bystrom

However, according to Pelled (1996), Knippenberg (2004), Cronin & Weingart (2007) “While language diversity is often perceived as negatively associated with interaction and performance some literatures argue that diversity is generally beneficial for organizations. The reason is that demographic diversity is assumed to be associated also with cognitive diversity, which expands a group’s knowledge resources and enhances its problem-solving capacity.” 9 Diversity is believed to stimulate information processing, creativity and group performance, hence organizational diversity may lead to the presence of more needed knowledge than in homogeneous groups (Lauring & Selmer, 2009).

Reviewing the research that has been compiled for multicultural organization I have my own understanding of it, and I believe that a multicultural organizations is an accumulation of people originating from different cultures with the purpose of working together. There are some drawbacks in a multicultural team such as linguistic issues, which can create misunderstandings when communicating.

Though, there are positive effects of a multicultural team, such as a broader information spectrum, heightening the creativity and the innovation aspect within the organization. Ultimately, to get a better idea of creativity and its effect on multicultural organizations we need to investigate it further.

B. Creativity, Teams & Organizations Finding literature on creativity in the workplace has not given as many results as I had predicted. There is a fairly small amount of literature that can be found about creativity and therefore the knowledge about it is less than expected.

This could be due to the fact that it has been considered ‘unmanageable’, too ‘elusive’, or because if focus were put on creativity it would not produce an immediate payoff as, for example, execution improvements could do (Amabile & Khaire, 2008).

1. Team Leadership & Team Collaborations When it comes to creativity and leadership it is imperative that the leader has the expertise and knowledge to engage the right people at the right times for the right degree of creative work (Amabile & Khaire, 2008). Robert Sutton, a professor of Stanford University’s School of Engineering “noted that most companies have hierarchical structures, and differences in status among people impede the exchange of ideas.”10 This is an important topic whereby; employees that are aware of a more leveled field in the work force have a bigger chance to contribute and actually speak up and be listened to. Sutton also suggest that it is a manager’s mission to know when a powerful person holding a meeting needs to be quiet,

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9 Lauring et al., “Multicultural Organizations” (2009): 327 10 Theresa M. Amabile, Mukti Khaire, Creativity and the Role of the Leader (Harvard Business Review, 2008), 102.

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in order for the others in the room that have much better ideas and problem solving solutions to speak their mind (Amabile & Khaire, 2008).

Managers not only need to be aware and have knowledge of the organization, they also need to be aware of suppression; “If managers cause people to suppress parts of their identity, they limit a potentially valuable source of creativity. If managers can encourage identity integration – think of female engineers working in an environment where they don’t feel they have to dress like men – people may be more innovative.”11 Other than avoiding suppression, employees can practice innovation and creativity through collaborations outside of the organization, such as open-source development.

“Executives must protect those doing creative work from a hostile environment and clear paths for them around obstacles ”

Kim Scott, director of online sales and operations for AdSense, Double-Click, and YouTube at Google believes that “executives must protect those doing creative work from a hostile environment and clear paths for them around obstacles.”12 Other research also states that there needs to be emphasis put on the need of a culture where creativity can grow; “returning to the image of a gardener who prepares the creative soil and nurtures the seedlings of ideas.”13 2. The Creative Workplace Scott argues that creativity in an organization depends on vibrant, ongoing collaborations and free flowing ideas. This, however, tends to dry up as business adds more people and projects (Amabile & Khaire, 2008). To motivate and encourage employees is especially important in a creative organization.

An employee that feels uninspired and neglected will most likely not produce innovative work, though, what triggers creativity has long been a matter of debate (Amabile & Khaire, 2008).

To observe potential creativity triggers, main factors include managers and their need to find a way to provide what people seek.

Key creative outputs exist to allow people to pursue their passions, intellectual challenge and independence (Amabile & Khaire, 2008). These creative outputs can be broken down into two phases (Halvorson, 2013):

Phase 1: Coming up with an original idea

Phase 2: Taking a hard look at this original idea and

assessing its value However, this is easier said than done; “So to be a successful creative, you need to not only be a good generator, but also a good evaluator. The problem is that in practice, it’s remarkably hard to be both. And the reason for that has everything to do with your motivational focus.”14 Creativity needs to be free and flowing, but also scrutinized of its potential value.

11 IBID, 103.

12 IBID, 105.

13 IBID, 105.

14 How Can You Boost Your Creative Output [essay on-line]; available from http://www.forbes.com/sites/heidigranthalvorson/2013/04/30/how-you-canboost-your-creative-output/#361bd7a08c3b; Internet: accessed 20 April 2016.

- Amabile & Khaire, 2008

Leaders need to be aware of the creative flow in the organization, and Scott Cook, Intuit cofounder, comments “ You’re most interested in fundamental paradigm changes, and yet you tend to staff your new projects with the people who did very well working on version 15 of the last big thing. You’re crazy if you think you’re going to get a big shift out of the version 15 team.”15 Leaders must actively manage and support the creative process in order to succeed. Management effectiveness is built up on several elements, and in a way creativity and effectiveness go hand in hand (Pitta, Wood & Franzak, 2008). A leader is responsible for solving problems, and as mentioned, problems arise more often than not.

Complications can sometimes be regarded as “old” and can then be solved quickly by equally “old” solutions. However, “new” problems demand effective problem solving skills and when an organization faces one of a variety of problems which constitute roadblocks to its progress, the solution would be based on a problem solving process based on insight and creative solutions (Pitta et al., 2008).

3. Creative Work Process According to Amabile (1988 & 1996) the definition of creativity is a production of ideas or solutions that are both novel and useful for problem solving and/or improvement.

In recent studies however, creativity has been given a more conceptualized status and is measured in terms of outcome-based standards of novelty and usefulness (To, Tse & Ashkanasy, 2012).

15 106.

Amabile, Khaire ”Creativity and the Role of the Leader” (2008):

One example is through observation assessment based on individual differences in creativity. Though it is a helpful investigation approach, it tends to presume that creativity is a stable attribute of an individual, irrespective of the potential systemic variance across occasions (Amabile et al., 2005; Binnewies & Wornlein, 2011; Ohly & Fritz, 2010; To et al., 2012) which might not be entirely correct at all times.

4. Design Thinking There are several different approaches and definitions of design thinking, however according to Tim Brown (2008), design thinking is in simple terms a discipline that uses the designers sensibility and methods to match peoples need with what is technologically feasible and what a viable business strategy can convert into customer value and market opportunity. Design thinking is not solely focused on the appearance of a product, rather enveloping an entire spectrum of tools and frameworks. It serves to mention that design thinking is not only product centered, but also influential of human experiences and services, hence the relatively new discipline of service design draws on some of the precepts of design thinking (Gobble, 2014).

The main conveyor for design thinking is the renowned design firm IDEO. With an enormous resume of creative publications, to just name a few: Apple’s mouse and a self sealing water bottle intended for dirt bikers (Gobble, 2014).

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Senior Thesis: Frida Bystrom

Paris College of Art

Tom Kelly, General Manager for IDEO shares IDEO’s simple five-step development process: 1. Understand the client, the market and the technology 2. Understand perceived constraints and moves through observation of real people in real situations 3. Visualization of possible solutions and users 4. Prototyping 5. Implementing the concept16 According to Kelly (2013), the blend of methodologies, work practices, culture and infrastructure of IDEO can be implemented and replicated in any organization, although the journey there might be difficult.

Design thinking is in the end more culture than methodology, and in order for such a culture to be built, a fundamental transformation is required. Not only the way organizations approach innovation, but also how it views itself; “any business can commit to successful design thinking but that initiative has to be led and implemented from the very top by a management committed to the process.”17 Creativity is tricky; it is not a subject that is so simply integrated in an organization mainly due to the simple fact that it hasn’t been a valid money-generating factor up until recently. However, based on my recent research it is clear how creativity can help an organization. However it is important that the creative output is fostered and acknowledged in order for it to fully work. Creativity is not black and white and I believe that is the reason why it scares some managers and leaders. Therefore, investigating the most applicable leadership style that will not subdue itself to a creative workplace has to be explored.

C. Leadership Styles 1. Management Style vs. Leadership Styles Examining the difference between Management and Leadership can be explained in various different ways.

Management can be seen as a function that must be applied to any business, while leadership is the energizer and the organizer. It can also be viewed that managers are the administrators, the ones who write the business plan, set the budgets and monitor progress while leaders get organizations and people to change (Maccoby, 2000), see table 1.

Management A function Planning Budgeting Evaluating Facilitating

Leadership A relationship Selecting talent Motivating Coaching Building trust

Table 1 Management versus leardship according to Maccoby (2000)

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16 MaryAnne M. Gobble, Design Thinking (Arlington: Industrial Research Institute, Inc, 2014), 60.

17 IBID, 60.

2. Different Leadership Styles A leader has a lot of responsibility in an organization; “People follow a leader either out of fear or for a mix of positive reasons such as hope and success, trust in the leader, excitement about a project or mission, or the opportunity to stretch oneself to the limit.” 18 When defining leadership styles there are two specific types of leaders; Strategic and Operational; “a strategic leader is to envisage the company’s future and to invest the resources necessary to create it. Operational leaders have the job of implementing the vision.”19 According to Maccoby (2000) there are four things that strategic and operational leaders can do to make teams and organizations successful:

1. Selecting talent

2. Motivating people

3. Coaching

4. Building trust Good leaders are not afraid to hire people who know more than they do, and to enhance motivation in the organization leaders can use the four R’s according to Maccoby (2000), see table 2:

Responsibilities

A leader should design responsibilities that engage a person’s competence and values - motivating when they stretch people and are meaningful to them. Can engage abilities, creating something new, helping others, and providing value to customers.

Rewards

If you want people to cooperate, you need to reward and recognize successful cooperation.

Relationships

Good leaders also strengthen motivation and develop competence through coaching.

Reasons

People quickly turn off when they feel their work is unnecessary; on the other they feel motivated even doing simple repetitive work when it is meaningful.

Table 2. Enhancing motivation in the organization with the four R’s (Maccoby 2000) 18 Maccoby, ”Understanding the Difference Between Management and Leadership” (2000): 57.

19 IBID, 57.

Building trust is paramount amongst a team, “good leaders develop trust through doing what they preach. Leaders can increase trust by promoting transparency and involvement.” 20

while resolving problems and making decisions on highly complex and important tasks.” 24

According to recent research there are a few important characteristics for global leaders to take into account (Black, Morrison & Gregersen, 1999; Brake, 1997; Tung & Miller, 1990; Yeung & Ready, 1995), which are: 1. Just like all business leaders, global leaders must have a large stock of knowledge. They need extensive knowledge about business in general–without it they can neither identify nor take advantage of opportunities. They must also have strong functional knowledge, both in their own areas of In order for an organization to perform at high levels they specialization and of the other functions and how they fit require first-class leadership (Zumitzavan & Michie, 2015). together.25 Jaques and Clement (1991) suggested that; “leadership is the 2.Global leaders need especially strong skills in three areas: process through which an individual establishes the purpose or

a. Learning and adapting direction for individuals or a group of people, and encourages them

b. Managing relationships to move along together with him or her and with each other in

c. Managing ambiguity that direction, with competence and full commitment.”21 There These skills happen to be much more,difficult and much more are several explanations about

critical in global settings the different meanings behind

than they are in more simple the world ‘Leadership’, but it is

environments. Global leaders need clear that no matter what,

to be experts in learning and leadership plays an important adapting their thinking to new paths. “ Good leaders are not role in shaping and maintaining

The global environment changes organizational culture

quickly and dramatically, and afraid to hire people who (Zumitzavan & Michie, 2015).

global leaders must be able to know more than they do ”

adapt their minds at the same Since leadership plays such a

pace.

In basic terms, “global leaders - Maccoby, 2000 significant role in forming and

must be experts at managing modeling the preservation of an

relationships; managing relationships organizational culture, it is

globally requires much more important to look at different

sophistication in adapting to key leadership styles. Based on

different styles with different people.” 26 literature for said research paper the most plausible leadership styles to investigate are ‘Global Global teams consist of vast amounts of different cultural Leadership’ and ‘Creative Leadership’: and functional backgrounds, which makes assumptions, relationships and decision-making difficult. Due to these 3. Global leadership differences, aspects like relationship-development and Global leaders “are critical to the success of multinational decision-making become hindered, which then makes it organizations”22 and “global leaders must develop a strong impossible for a global team to realize its full potential portfolio of technical, interpersonal, and conceptual skills (Maznevski & DiStefano, 2000). appropriate for managing the most complex of all possible situations.”23 Global leaders are essential to an organization, 3.1. Collective Creative Process however the team is also crucial in order for decision-making When discussing creativity and creative outputs it is and operational implementation to take place since it is important to point out that individuals do not always perform mainly executed within the team (Maznevski & DiStefano, their best at all times (Beal, Weiss, Barros & MacDermid, 2000). Multicultural teams are critical to an organization’s 2005) and until recently, creativity in an organizational setting success, and in order for global teams to work effectively in a not been studied at all (To et al., 2012). multicultural environment it “requires skillfully managing large differences in member backgrounds, across geographic distances, By promoting transparency, in the sense of being open about business results, market information and compensation policy, they give the workers a chance to be part of processes.

Workers want to know about what is coming up in the near future and to have the possibility to contribute - by knowing their voice has been heard can enhance their trust (Maccoby, 2000).

20 Maccoby, ”Understanding the Difference Between Management and Leadership” (2000): 57.

21 Jonathan Michie, Vissanu Zumitzavan, Personal Knowledge Management, Leadership Styles, and Organisational Performance (Springer Verlag, 2015), 10.

22 Martha L. Maznevski, Joseph J. DiStefano, Global Leaders are Team Players ( John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2000), 195.

23 IBID, 195.

24 25 26 196.

IBID, 195.

IBID, 196.

Maznevski, DiStefano “Global Leaders are Team Players” (2000):

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Senior Thesis: Frida Bystrom

Paris College of Art

According to George and Zhou (2007), a momentary perspective provide us with an alternative lens for understanding how naturally occurring experiences such as affect or other states in the flow of employees’ work lives are related to ongoing creativity.

Creative outputs and creative processes are essential in recognizing innovation, however creative process poses the question of which processes brings out creative outcomes (Davis, 2009). Even though creative processes might not produce immediate outcomes, they can nonetheless provide answers and solutions useful later on as more ideas are discovered. As stated previously, individuals are not able to be creative at all times, however if they desire, they can choose to engage in more or less of the processes known to lead to eventual creative outcomes (Zhang & Bartol, 2010). These processes are as follows:

1. Problem Identification

Framing and reframing of a problem

2. Information searching and encoding

Consulting and combining information from

different sources

3. Idea and alternative generation

Producing better alternative solutions to problems Zhang and Bartol (2010) conclude, in particular, that the three processes form a single overall construct positively related to supervisor-rated creative performance.

However individual creative processes and collective process are different despite their similarities. This is due to the creative processes at group levels resulting from a particular point in time when a group of individual perspectives and experiences are brought together to produce new insights (Hargadon & Bechky, 2006). The following table summarises and simplifies the collective creative process in a multicultural organization, see table 3:

Mapping

Bridging

Integrating

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Mapping understands the team’s compositional differences and the corresponding implications for bringing to the team different knowledge perspectives and approaches to relationship management.

Bridging is communicating across those differences to ensure that each member understands the others.

Integrating is bringing the different perspectives and preferences together, resolving differences among them, and building on them to generate innovative, high quality approaches to the task.

Table 3. Global team process (Maznevski & DiStefano, 2000)

“Global leaders are critical 3.2. Global Mindset Global mindset is an individual’s capability to influence others unlike themselves ( Javidan & Bowen, 2013). There are two approaches on how to develop a global mindset, it goes as following ( Javidan & Bowen, 2013): 1. Find First approach is based on finding individuals with attributes associated with global mindset. For example, certain demographics and educational backgrounds, as well as in companies and industries with attributes likely to foster it, i.e. different sizes and sectors 2. Grow Second approach is based on leadership development, programs and coaching.

to the success of multinational organizations ” - Mazneviski & DiStefano, 2000

Mike Duke, CEO of Wal-Mart noted that “the thing that is probably the most challenging for a company like ours is continuing to grow the talent for a company that’s growing around the world… We will add thousands of customers. We can add sales to our top line. But it will require leadership.”27 There is a growing need for global leaders in today’s society, and current literature has shown that a shortage of global executive talent is the main concern for global organizations expanding ( Javidan & Bowen, 2013).

27 Mansour Javidan, David Bowen, The ‘Global Mindset’ of Managers: What it is, Why it Matters, and How to Develop it (Elsevier Science Publisher 2013), 146.

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Senior Thesis: Frida Bystrom

Paris College of Art

According to Javidan and Bowen (2013), leadership has the ability to influence others to get something done. What makes global leadership so special is that the target of influence, individuals, groups or organizations, transpires from a different part of the world from the leader.

Based on previously stated research, global mindset is built up out of three core pillars and nine underlying building blocks (2013). These factors are assembled to enable managers to influence others and achieve their organization’s goal. The structure of global mindset are as following: Global Mindset Global Intellectual Capital

Global Psychological Capital

Global Social Capital

Global Business Savvy

Passion for Diversity

Intercultural Empathy

Cognitive Complexity

Quest for Adventure

Interpersonal Impact

Cosmopolitan Outlook

Self-Assurance

Diplomacy

Global Intellectual Capital: The cognitive side of Global Mindset. It refers to how much and what the manager knows about the global business in her industry and its broader macro environment, and how easy it is for her to analyze, digest, and interpret this information.

Global business savvy: Knowledge of the way business is conducted in different parts of the world.

• Knowledge of global industry • Knowledge of global competitive business and marketing strategies • Knowledge of how to transact business and manage risk in other countries • Knowledge of supplier options in other parts of the world Cosmopolitan outlook: Understanding that things can be done very differently in different parts of the world.

• Knowledge of cultures in different parts of the world • Knowledge of geography, history, and important persons of several countries • Knowledge of economic and political issues, concerns, hot topics, etc. of major regions of the world • Up-to-date knowledge of important world events

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Cognitive complexity: The manager’s ability to digest, interprets, and leverage the large amount of information embedded in global business savvy and cosmopolitan outlook.

• Ability to grasp complex concepts quickly • Strong analytical and problem solving skills • Ability to understand abstract ideas • Ability to take complex issues and explain the main points simply and understandably Global Psychological Capital: The Affective Aspect of Global Mindset. It helps a manager leverage her Global Intellectual Capital. A manager may be knowledgeable about other cultures and may be relatively up to date about world events. But without a strong Global Psychological Capital, she may be uninterested in working with people from other parts of the world and may find global roles stressful and frustrating.

Passion for diversity: Curiosity about people in different parts of the world and how they do things differently. Joy in learning about and dealing with people from other countries and regions.

• Interest in exploring other parts of the world • Interest in getting to know people from other parts of the world • Interest in living in another country • Interest in variety Quest for adventure: Engaging in a global role represents new and unfamiliar things.

Quest for adventure reflects the manager’s willingness to deal with risks of unfamiliarity.

• Interest in dealing with challenging situations • Willingness to take risk • Willingness to test one’s abilities • Interest in dealing with unpredictable situations

Intercultural empathy: The ability to connect, communicate, and collaborate with people from other countries • Ability to work well with people from other parts of the world • Ability to understand nonverbal expressions of people from other cultures • Ability to emotionally connect to people from other cultures • Ability to engage people from other parts of the world to work together Interpersonal impact: The ability to negotiate across borders and to build personal and professional networks of influence.

• Experience in negotiating contracts in other cultures • Strong networks with people from other cultures and with influential people • Reputation as a leader • Credibility Diplomacy: The ability to make a positive impression on people from other parts of the world by acting in such a way that builds a lasting impression.

• Ease of starting a conversation with a stranger • Ability to integrate diverse perspectives • Ability to listen to what others have to say • Willingness to collaborate28 A global organization has many positive qualities, however how big and how fast it will grow will depend on how adaptable the management teams are to global realities.

Self-assurance: Having the energy and confidence to take on global roles and responsibilities.

• Energetic • Self-confident • Comfortable in uncomfortable situations • Witty in tough situations

4. Creative Leadership Creative leadership has been defined as “deliberately engaging one’s imagination to define and guide a group toward a novel goal - a direction that is new for the group.” 29 Creativity is learned through experimentation: by exploring the unknown, utilizing our imagination and questioning assumptions (Sohmen, 2015). It is important to note that creativity is anything but random and aimless, creativity “focus, discipline, and a desire to change our world.” 30 Based on current creativity literature, there are seven key creativity skill factors aimed at leaders that can drive the creative process (Puccio, Murdock, & Mance, 2011).

Global Social Capital: The Behavioral Aspect of Global Mindset. It reflects the individual’s ability to act in a way that would help build trusting relationships with people from other parts of the world.

1.Diagnostic Diagnostic thinking involves making careful examination of a situation, describing the nature of a problem and making decisions about appropriate process steps that need to be taken (Puccio, Murdock, & Mance, 2005).

28 Javidan, Bowen, “The ‘Global Mindset’ of Managers: What it is, Why it Matters, and How to Develop it” (2013): 148.

29 Victor S. Sohmen, Reflections on Creative Leadership, International Journal of Global Business (College of Engineering, Drexel University, USA, 2015), 6.

30 IBID, 3.

Skills-diagnostics is not exclusively used in the creativity field but is present in most fields and professions, which includes leadership.

2. Visionary Visionary thinking has been defined as conceiving of the result you want to create (Fritz, 1989). This factor has become increasingly more important in recent years as leaders cannot solely rely on lengthy data-compilation before making decisions. “CEOs recognize that they can no longer afford the luxury of protracted study and review before making choices” (IBM, 2010) (CEO Study). Instead, “they are learning to respond swiftly with new ideas to address the deep changes affecting their organizations.”31 3.Strategic Strategic thinking involves identifying the critical issues that must be addressed and the pathways needed to move towards the desired future (Puccio, Murdock & Mance, 2005). Creative leaders tend to engage themselves in strategic thinking through a continuous process rather than a once-ayear thing, as other leaders in other fields do (Turner, 2011).

Creative leaders approach strategic thinking more openly with a stronger commitment to a comprehensive strategic process.

4. Ideational Ideational thinking has been defined as producing original mental images and thoughts that respond to important challenges (Puccio, Murdock & Mance, 2011). “Ideational thinking is the process of generating numerous ideas that each might potentially resolve (or reduce) the gap between the vision and current state.”32 It has been said that in order to reach a eureka moment one can not only have a great idea, a lot of hard work has to be put in ‘innovation is 5% inspiration and 95% perspiration’ (Birkinshaw, Bouquet & Barsoux, 2011).

5. Evaluative Evaluative thinking has been defined as assessing the reasonableness and quality of ideas in order to develop workable solutions; which includes both divergent and convergent thinking (Puccio, Murdock, & Mance, 2005). This factor is an extremely essential leadership skill “especially when evaluating novel ideas for possible implementation”.33 Evaluative thinking can take a small idea and carefully let it grow and develop into a fully implemented solution. In order for good ideas to overcome bad ideas evaluative thinking has to be conducted in a careful and systematic fashion (Turner, 2011).

6. Contextual Contextual thinking has been defined as understanding the interrelated conditions and circumstances that will support or hinder success (Puccio, Murdock & Mance, 2005).

31 Developing Creative Leaders through Creative Problem-Solving & Facilitation Training [essay on-line]; available from http://www.creativeleader. com/developing-creative-leaders-through-creative-problem-solving-facilitation-training/; Internet: accessed 17 April 2016.

32 IBID 33 IBID

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Senior Thesis: Frida Bystrom

Paris College of Art

Some convergent processes contribute positively to group performance, and help the group achieve a single group outcome. These positive processes include communication, or the sharing of common meaning, and social integration, or the development of group cohesion, commitment, and identity. Other convergent processes contribute negatively to group performance because they make the group closed to dissent from within or new information from without, when the new information is important to achieving a high-quality decision.

1. Divergent - Process gain: Creativity.

In team processes, creativity is the consideration of a wide variety of alternatives and criteria for evaluating alternatives.

Creativity is an important component of innovation (O’Reilly, Williams & Barsade, 1998), and can increase performance.

Creativity is clearly a divergent process, and the creative benefits of heterogeneous team compositions have been supported by numerous studies (Cox & Blake, 1991; Doz, Santos, & Williamson, 2004; O’Reilly, 1998). As a result of cultural differences being associated with differences in mental models, modes of perception, and approaches to problems, they are likely to provide strong inputs for creativity.

This factor is also a very valuable leadership skill, because in order for innovative solutions to be introduced, or allow creative change, leaders must know how to work within their social contexts (Puccio, Murdock, & Mance, 2011).

7. Tactical thinking These seven thinking skills can be improved by creativity training, and are positively applicable to leadership (Sohmen, 2015). A way to selectively engage and enhance all seven factors is through a systematic manner of using specific creativity tools, which will tackle particular elements of creative challenges. Over time, as a leader repeatedly uses these tools, creativity will develop and strengthen and creativity skills will evolve from ‘consciously unskilled’ to ‘consciously skilled’ to eventually ‘unconsciously skilled’ (Puccio, Murdock & Mance, 2011). The creative thinking skill model is an ideal model in creative training as it assists in the development of the distinct cognitive skills that collectively comprise creative thinking (Puccio, Murdock & Mance, 2011).

5. Cross-Cultural Team Management Culture diversity, and diversity in general, can affect a team in a number of different ways. However most studies state “that all aspects of differences among people affect groups in the same way.”34 However there is evidence (Horwitz & Horwitz, 2007) that diversity may influence a team outcome in different ways based on the cultural diversity within the organization.

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34 Stahl et al., “A Look at the Bright Side of Multicultural Team Diversity” (2010): 442.

According to Mannix and Neale (2005), diversity influences teams in three potentially opposing ways.

1. Similarity Attraction Theory The similarity attraction theory is based on the idea that people are attracted to working with ‘similar peers’; meaning those that are interested in similar values, beliefs and attitudes (Williams & O’Reilly, 1998).

2. Social Identity and Social Categorization Theory People have a tendency to categorize themselves into specific groups, where that part of the selective group is superior to those that are not part of the group. Favoritism towards those in the group is also present (Tajfel, 1982).

3. Information Processing Theory This theory is based on the diversity factor and that it brings different contributions to a team. This means that a diverse team has the possibility to cover a broader territory of information, tap into a broader range of networks and perspectives as well as having enhanced abilities in problem solving, creativity and innovation (Stahl et al., 2010).

These three theories clearly show that the first two theories are negative effects on diversity while the third theory proves the opposite effect.

Stahl et al., (2010) considers another strong model based on divergence and convergence: the convergent process aligns the team around common objectives, commitments and conclusions.

2. Divergent - Process loss: Conflict Conflict is the expression of differences in opinion or priority because of opposing needs or demands (Tjosvold, 1986), and is therefore a divergent process (although resolving conflict can be converging). There is some evidence that task conflict may increase performance, and personal conflict may decrease performance (Qhen, Chadwick, & Thatcher, 1997). Because cultural differences are deep, and often held subconsciously, the sources of conflict in multicultural teams may be difficult to identify, and even more difficult to resolve (Kirchmeyer & Cohen, 1992).

3. Convergent- Process gain: Communication.

Effective communication, or the transmission of meaning from one person to another as it was intended, is an important alignment process. Effective communication is associated with good team performance both directly and by impacting on other processes such as conflict resolution and cohesiveness. Cultural differences can greatly interfere with the communication process. Effective communication requires that individuals have at least a minimum of shared language around which to align (Maznevski, 1994).

4. Convergent - Process gain: Satisfaction.

Satisfaction is the feeling of having a need adequately fulfilled. The team literature tends to focus on satisfaction with the group process and with the group outcome as the two most important aspects of satisfaction (Hackman, 1987).

The relationship between diversity and satisfaction has generally been found to be negative (Basadur & Head, 2001).

According to similarity-attraction theory, interactions with people who are similar tend to be more satisfying. Moreover, people are usually more satisfied the smoother the group operates, and perceive that diversity influences the group dynamics in a negative way. Cultures function in part to create a source of identity within the group, and in part to create efficiency within the group. Both of these aspects of satisfaction will be decreased when working across cultures.

5. Convergent - Process gain: Social integration.

Social integration is the attraction to the group, satisfaction with other members of the group, and social interaction among group members (O’Reilly, Caldwell & Barnett, 1989).

It captures a set of dynamics associated with general group functioning and collaboration, including cohesion (Katz & Kahn 1978; Shaw 1981), morale and trust (Smith et al.

1994), and coordination (McGrath, 1984; O’Reilly et al.

1989). Most research has found that diversity has a negative impact on social integration. Because cultures develop in order to facilitate social integration within the culture, it follows that social integration will be lower when there are multiple cultures in a group. In addition, cultural diversity’s strong association with similarity- attraction and social categorization implies that it will have a negative effect on social integration. 35 As previously stated, some convergent processes contribute positively to group performance, which includes communication, or the sharing of common meanings.

Communicating effectively is as important to successful management and leadership as selecting the right employees for your work unit (Thoms & Fairbank, 2007). Managers tend to spend up to eighty percent of their working days communicating with others, hence why communication can be seen as vital, or even the essence of a professional life.

Observing what has been provided in terms of literature it is clear to me that there are several different ways to lead, and there are several different theories and styles that suit different organizations. I believe that in order for a multicultural organization to fully function and thrive, not one model is correct. I believe that a mix of different theories is necessary in order for every employee to be taken into account and respected. Not only is the application of different leadership styles of extreme importance, but also how communication is handled in a multicultural organization is imperative.

35 Günter K. Stahl, Matha L. Maznevski, Andreas Voigt, Karsten Jonsen, Unraveling the Effects of Cultural Diversity in Teams: A Meta-Analysis of Research on Multicultural Work Groups ( Journal of International Business Studies, 2010), 694-5.

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Senior Thesis: Frida Bystrom

Paris College of Art

D. Intercultural Communication 1. Definition of Intercultural Communication “The fact that communication can be affected in so brief a time on the cultural level is often responsible for the confusion which so often occurs in cross-cultural communication” (Hall, 1959) Intercultural communication can be defined as how two, or more, culturally different individuals encounter difficulties in reaching common understandings as they communicate.

It can also be described as the communication that exists between people with different backgrounds as well as the knowledge of how cultural patterns affects interpretations, communication and actions (Hall, 1959).

“Culture is communication and communication is culture ” - Hall, 1973

One of the first scholars to link culture and communication together was Edward T. Hall in his book “The Silent Language” (Hall, 1959). Hall states that culture is communication, as communication is the glue that links people together and hence it constitutes a necessary condition for any human interaction. The way people express ideas verbally or nonverbally depends strongly on cultural background and values. Hall was one of the first researchers who actually differentiated culture based on how communication is sent and received; he defined it as communication between persons of different cultures (Chaney & Martin, 2007).

Communication interactions are conducted through contexts and the effect on communication can be according to the basic communication model based on the Shannon & Weaver’s model (1949), where the sent message is due to cultural backgrounds, never identical to the received message.

Due to this, communication does not necessarily result in understanding. Disagreement in a group may remain implicit or hidden because members assume that they interpret things similarly when, in fact, the opposite is true.

Intercultural communication is a term that people dismiss and reject because so many believe that since there are enough similarities between people communication is easy (Barna, 1994). This is however one of the biggest misunderstandings one can make in terms of culture and communication. Since people believe there are enough similarities amongst people, basically that ‘people are people’, it reduces discomfort having to deal with differences; “if someone acts or looks ‘strange’ it’s then possible to evaluate this as ‘wrong’ and treat everyone ethnocentrically.”36 In todays society we associate with a somewhat different interpretation of intercultural communication; Intercultural communication is “a symbolic, interpretive, transactional, contextual process in which people from different cultures create shared meanings.” 37

2. Key Elements of Intercultural Communication When getting to know the key factors of intercultural communication there are six stumbling blocks that affect intercultural communication, those are (Barna, 1994): 1. Assumption of similarities People will think that since you are human you will have no troubles understanding s/he since you share similar values.

2. Language Differences; Vocabulary, syntax, idioms and slang are the major problems.

3. Nonverbal Misinterpretations Different people inherit different culture habits, therefore nonverbal communication can be difficult when unaware of the customs of other cultures.

4. Preconceptions and Stereotypes Behaviors can be seemingly inappropriate or plain wrong depending on where you are in the world.

5. Tendency to Evaluate Basically to approve or disapprove, certain statements or actions taken by individuals or as a group.

6. High Anxiety Also known as stress, which is common in people with crosscultural experiences.

Based on these six stumbling blocks it shows that within intercultural communication “the lack of comprehension of nonverbal signs and symbols that are easy to observe–such as gestures, postures, and other body movements—is a definite communication barrier. But it is possible to learn the meanings of these messages.”38 3. Intercultural Communication’s affect on leadership In today’s globalized world, people have lastly started to call attention to the need to understand cultures and intercultural communication. This was not the case a few years ago (Lustig & Koster, 2006). Since culture “involves beliefs, values, norms and social practices”39 it is imperative that leaders take that into account when leading a multicultural team in the global world they operate in.

4. Intercultural Communication & Collaborations As mentioned earlier in said paper, trust is extremely important in an organization. “The meaning of trust and the ways in which it is established vary across cultures. Therefore, developing trust is an issue that has to be resolved in any multicultural collaboration. If sources of conflicts can be identified, then it may be possible to resolve them.”40 38 340.

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36 Laray M. Barna, Stumbling Blocks in Intercultural Communication (Belomont: Wadsworth Publishing Company, 1994), 337.

37 Lustig, Koster, “Intercultural Competence” (2006): 46.

Barna, “Stumbling Blocks in Intercultural Communication” (1994):

39 Lustig, Koster, ”Intercultural Competence” (1993): 27.

40 Bird, Osland, “Making Sense of Intercultural Collaboration” (2005-6): 116.

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Senior Thesis: Frida Bystrom

Paris College of Art

But cultures can vary in their inclination to trust just like individuals, all cultures do not respond positively to the same trustworthiness. According to research U.S. managers indicated higher trust than managers from other regions (Bird & Osland, 2006) Since intercultural collaborations can be found basically everywhere in the working world; joint ventures, government-business partnerships, projects, distributorships, marketing partnerships, cross-cultural teams, the list can be made very long. In these situations collaborations are often shaped in the form of information exchange, task coordination, low-level surveillance and monitoring operations (Bird & Osland, 2006).

Cultural stereotypes are something that has not been mentioned so far, mainly because of the limitations it creates.

However, if an organization is aware of the limitations, cultural stereotypes can be beneficial when comparing cultures amongst each other (Bird & Osland, 2006). For example: “France ranks high on power distance, high on uncertainty avoidance, high on individualism, and moderately low on masculinity. This contrasts with Germany, which scores moderately low on power distance, moderately high on uncertainty avoidance, high on individualism, and moderately high on masculinity.”41 As described, this excerpt can be of both negative and positive nature based on who interprets it and how that person interprets it.

Intercultural communication to me is one of the most essential factors in an organization in today’s globalized world. A multicultural team is based on diverse nationalities that will most likely work and collaborate in other global companies, hence being aware and having knowledge about intercultural communication is paramount.

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41 Bird, Osland, “Making Sense of Intercultural Collaboration” (2005-6): 119.

25

Senior Thesis: Frida Bystrom

Paris College of Art

A. My Theoretical Basis The purpose of this study is to investigate collaboration issues, culture differences and communication, particular to creative teams. In order for me to get a step closer to answering my research question, I decided to interview a select group of people that had great experience in the field of study I was researching. Performing semi-structured interviews with professionals was key to gaining answers that would question, answer and support my research question. Some scholars might argue that qualitative research individually might be limiting the potential outcome (Danemark, 2003; Wright, 2010) and that qualitative and quantitative research combined is encouraged. I however argue that quantitative research would not be as focused on people with experience in my field of study and would therefore add information that would not be entierly valuable to me.

B. Interview Study My interviewees were found through contacts I gained through Paris College of Art, as well as through contacts of contacts. The interviewees have different backgrounds in terms of professional title, gender and age, however they all share personal and professional experience within culture, communication and leadership in one-way or another.

Creativity in their workforce was something a few of my interviewees would not immediately position themselves as being part of, however at the end of the interview most subjects agreed that creativity is a present factor in most organizations.

III. METHODOLOGY In this chapter I will present my theoretical basis and my choice of data collection and method of analysis in obtaining my result.

The interview consisted of 10 questions (Appendix 2) and the queries revolved around communication, culture, creativity and lastly leadership. The interviews were qualitatively based, due to a personal preference since I believe professionals with large amounts of experience in the field of study would add more substance to this paper. The interviews were made onsite or via phone. During every interview I took notes on my computer throughout the entire length of the dialogue. The information was transcribed over a five-month period, simultaneously as the interviews were taking place.

The interview was transcribed, summarized, and analyzed according to the illustrative method of qualitative content analysis (Patel & Tibelius, 1987). The illustrative method is descriptive in its nature and combines the qualitative qualities of the interview answers with an arrangement of the answers into themes following a word-based structure. The wordbased structure in my analysis was divided into the following four categories: multicultural organizations, creativity, leadership styles and intercultural communication.

2. Presentation The analysis of the interviews will be found in chapter V where a subjective view will be added to the outcome of the respondents. An objective view on the compiled interviews will be found in the following chapter, chapter IV. I will present the data according to my word-based structure: multicultural organizations, creativity, leadership styles and intercultural communication.

1. Data Collection & Analysis In order for me to understand leadership style, with a specific focus on culture differences and communication within a creative team I conducted semi-structured interviews with professionals in various different fields. When conducting data collection about a topic such as field of research it is important to take into account different cultures, genders, ages and professions. The chosen interviewees were based on similar backgrounds with experience in multicultural organizations working across cultures in a global market. I believed they could add appropriate perspective and insight in order for me to fully evaluate and identify leadership styles most applicable to creative teams.

Ten in-depth interviews were conducted over a five-month period, and the compilation if the interviews were conducted alongside. The interviews were made solely by myself and seven out of ten were made in English while three were made in a mix of Swedish and English. The interviews varied in time, depending on the interviewee, however it took between thirty minutes to an hour and a half.

See list of interviewees in Appendix 1.

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27

Senior Thesis: Frida Bystrom

Paris College of Art

A. Multicultural Organization The majority of my interviewees have been professionally and personally exposed to a vast variety of cultures and currently all informants are working across cultures in their particular fields.

IV. RESULTS In this chapter my focus will be to present the voices of my interviewees and connect to my word-based structure: multicultural organizations, creativity, leadership styles and intercultural communication.

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Alice Peinado, an anthropologist and a key member in Design Management argues that as a person leading and managing multicultural organizations one needs to be highly adaptable. Human beings in general are highly adaptable, and one person is not entirely the same throughout the entire day through different contexts, we change and adapt to the situation we are put in. According to Peinado, this is key when working with different cultures. Peinado also says that as soon as one learns how to communicate and act towards colleagues from different cultures, a multicultural environment becomes easier to navigate. We speak differently to our British colleagues as we do to our Italian colleagues, Peinado states, however it is when we learn how to speak differently that the question of understanding becomes important. We might know how we communicate to them, but we also need to learn to understand the communication they are conversing to us. When asking Anne Bugagnani, Design Consultant, about her experience and thoughts about multicultural organization her main issue when working across cultures is communication. It is not enough to speak a language, let alone work in another culture according to Bugagnani, one has to understand and adapt to the criteria’s of the other culture, which grows through respect and understanding.

One of her examples are based on an interaction with an Asian company and how they would not jump in amidst a conversation, rather they had to be invited by the other business partners into the conversation in order to participate.

HR manager, Annette Melbin, who has worked with a vast variety of different multicultural organizations says that it has been a positive factor to her professional life. In her current job she is mainly working in Sweden with her Swedish colleagues, but also with Chinese colleagues. She states that a multicultural organization is difficult, but positive. William Maddeaux, Area chair for the organizational behavior area at INSEAD believes that a multicultural organization definitely adds an extra layer of complexity to a company.

When working in groups amongst people with different backgrounds and cultures it can absolutely be a challenge: “ You are immersed in a group setting with different cultures, different languages and basically even different behaviors. Not only can the physical interaction be a problem, simple things like writing emails, the style of the email and the language used in the email can create challenges when a multicultural aspects is added to an organization.” Maddeaux argues that one has to think about different behaviors and not only manage the differences but also leverage the differences. Martine Bruno, Fashion Production Manager also agrees with Maddeaux.

She claims that one does not behave similarly to another colleague based on the fact that they are people; even if one use and speak the same language (i.e. English) people can and will be interpreted wrongly or misunderstood. Bruno agrees with Peinado that when participating in a multicultural organization one has to adapt to the situation. Bruno states “multiculturalism has to be creative”.

It was interesting that almost all interviewees agreed that an accumulation of cultures adds an extra layer of complexity but also enhances creativity chances in an organization.

B. Creativity, Teams & Organizations The majority of my interviewees agreed that multiculturalism equals creativity; that a mix of cultures facilities creativity and that different perspective through a culturally diverse team is key to a creative organization.

Creativity to Bruno is imagination. Creativity has an origin, and imagination and observation are the key factors that complete creativity. “ You must be creative to understand people” Bruno claims, and when asking Todd Lubart, Professor of Psychology at the Universite Paris Descartes about creativity he announce that a mixing of cultures facilitates creativity.

Not only can cultural diversity enhance creativity, but factors like gender, age and background can also contribute to a more creative organization. Maddeaux also agrees with Lubart that a multicultural team creates creativity, since a multicultural team has more novel ideas to share and develop amongst each other. A multicultural team has the possibility to see more connections between different ways. This is based on the fact that different cultures put together in a team can draw inspiration and life events from different parts of the world, compiling it to a huge creative brainstorm unlike what a monoculture team could do.

Linda Jarvin, Dean of Paris College of Art, states that a multicultural team has to be more creative, since more cultures in a team have different experiences and different ideas.

Peinado also agrees that possibilities for more inspiration and experiences gathered from different cultures can create creativity, however she also thinks that creativity doesn’t come automatically. One needs to know how to harness creativity, but also how to let it grow without stopping it. Creativity is more fluid according to Peinado, “Creativity is thinking outside the box”, but one also has to work towards it for creativity to grow and develop. However Peinado agrees that multiculturalism creates a breeding ground for diversity. To quote Maddeaux “Creativity is even better with a multicultural team.”

It was interesting that when asked the questions about what are the main factors of creativity is, the bulk of my informants argued that it is fairly hard to determine, however that it is a personal element with a compilation of imagination, upbringing and freedom of expression.

29

Senior Thesis: Frida Bystrom

Paris College of Art

Not only is the action of communication a barrier, but also how one talks can be a problem. One culture can have one meaning for a word or an action that has a positive or neutral connotation to it, but when communicated with another culture it can be the complete opposite. Therefore if one is not aware of the reference one can be interpreted as extremely rude. Some cultures have norms in how to speak, which can be a problem if a business partner from another culture is not aware of this norm. Maddeaux suggests that when working across cultures it is good to establish some guidelines in how to communicate, how direct they are going to be and what language they are going to communicate in, in order to avoid any potential problems that can arise.

C. Leadership styles The majority of my interviewees stated that when leading a multicultural organization it is important that you have knowledge about culture and its factors. A leader also need to be aware that individuals operate differently from each other, just like different cultures operate differently from each other.

As a HR manager Melbin concludes that one of the key factors to be a successful leader is to be open, responsive and to show respect. One can make mistakes without even knowing it, or not being aware that it is seen as a mistake in a different culture from oneself, therefore by establishing relationships and showing an interest to the other person is of major importance. Asking questions and conveying a clear objective exterior as a leader are factors that are important when working with multicultural organizations. Melbin has as mentioned had experience with multicultural organizations and can also attest to the code of conduct as a strong pillar of value when working across cultures. Jarvin considers that as a leader it is important to retreat and let the employees express themselves in an open and non-judgmental environment, especially within a creative organization. Jarvin affirms that in a fairly obvious hierarchy organization, employers might have difficulties feeling the possibility to express themselves on an equal level.

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Just like Melbin argues the importance of relationships when conducting business, multicultural or not, Bruno states “How can you manage them if you don’t know them?” She claims that one has to spend time with its colleagues and business partners in order to manage and lead in the best possible way.

Based on Bruno’s experience, business partners from Asia and South America were those that required most relationship building in order for communication, motivation and problem solving to be as positive as possible. As a leader one has to adapt, which has been stated in previous section, like Peinado stated, “Human beings are not simple”. Bruno agrees that as a leader one has to adapt to the culture in question,

however, culture is not the only thing that needs to be taken into account; communication is just as important. A leader needs to evaluate the communication factors of a culture and how people in that culture communicate with each other and with outsiders. “ You manage people, and everyone doesn’t react the same way” (Bruno). This is a factor that Maddeaux also express when it comes to leadership; a leader needs to take culture into account, but people in said culture are not always the same; “Not everyone is wired the same way”. Leaders cannot be stuck in the idea of what is normal, people have different personalities: some are more rigid and some are more flexible, this knowledge is key to a good leader since a good leader knows how to manage differently. Since cultures have different rules, Maddeaux argues that leaders cannot distribute the same rules to everyone not only because of different cultures, but also based on different personality traits within and without said culture.

It was interesting that most informants come from different professional backgrounds but seem to share very similar experiences when problems arise in the workplace that revolves around leadership, differences in cultures and lastly communication.

D. Intercultural communication The majority of my interviewees agreed that communication of any form has at one point been a problematic factor in their work environment. Communication is also believed to be a lot harder when put in a multicultural setting.

“Intercultural relationships are still an issue, especially the communication” Bugagnani states, Jarvin also views intercultural communication as something that can create issues; “Between cultures, everyone has a different opinion on how they should communicate”. Maddeaux constitutes that communication is a lot harder when one is part of a multicultural organization.

Lubart argues that problems that arise in the workplace can most of the time be tracked back to lack of communication.

When the communication strategy is mainly focused on higher-level management, leaving lower-management people out of the loop, it creates negative communication actions by making employees unhappy and disgruntled by being overlooked and ignored. Fredrik Ulvenholm, CEO at Ice House and app Development Company, claim that one of the key factors of intercultural communication is simply listening. People need to get better at listening to one another, but also adapting the way that people use their language can be crucial. Ulvenholm says that “English speaking people have troubles adapting their language so that people who are not native English speakers can understand” Due to linguistic challenges it is important to simplify the language so that one can be understood across cultures at every possibility.

When working in countries like North America, Sweden, Vietnam etc. one thing appears to be common in terms of communication - the Internet. However, how they use the internet is extremely different, and this is what Bruno argues is the problem with intercultural communication; even if one uses the same type of communication, the way it is used and what impact it has is the big problem. When communication has the potential to be widely spread across the globe, managers need to adapt. Similar to Peinado’s claim that communication is difficult across cultures, Bruno argues that,“It is about understanding where the people are coming from” and that communication is difficult, but also presentation and delivery is of importance. The message has to be written and delivered in a way that the other person understands and feels respected.

It was interesting that so many informants agreed that communication on its own is not the principle challenge, but also how you speak, understand and what meaning it is to you is also part of barriers in intercultural communication.

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Senior Thesis: Frida Bystrom

Paris College of Art

A.Multicultural Organizations In today’s society a global outlook is as common as a big cup of coffee in the morning. Working includes a multicultural team or a business that works across cultures, most of the time, which is why it is interesting that it is a fairly under researched field. When interacting across cultures, problems arise, which we can all probably relate to in one way or another?

The main issues surrounding multicultural interactions are: • Culture • Both verbal and nonverbal intercultural communication • Culture Shock (Chaney & Martin, 2008) As Sthal et. al. (2010) argued, “In today’s society multicultural organizations are often overemphasized by current theory and research as something problematic and barrier driven, rather than potentially enriching cultural encounters and interactions.”42 I can agree with this in the sense that a multicultural factor adds more layers to an organization, however I strongly disagree that it would mainly have a negative impact on the business.

V. ANALYSIS & DISCUSSION In this chapter I will analyze the results of the interviews, which were aimed at answering how to smoothly and positively lead a globally creative multicultural team through communication issues and culture differences and connect the analyses to the overall findings in the literature study.

In a multicultural organization where different cultures are so present, the linguistic and cultural differences make things like communication and understanding particularly challenging. Looking at the process of communication, the reason we communicate the way we do is through the structure of our culture. Culture on its own is learned through perceptions, which is then formed and based on various factors, such as (Chaney & Martin, 2008): • Where we are born and raised • The language we learn • The people and environment with which we live • The psychological stimuli we encounter Based on these factors it is clear that the way we act, move, talk and live is closely based on the culture that we grew up in, it is however paramount to notify that differences between individuals in a society also exists. Diversity in a team according to me is a great and mainly positive aspect in an organization, which has not been the voice of reasoning in previous literature “that all aspects of differences among people affect groups in the same way.”43 This has however been proved differently according to Horwitz & Horwitz (2007).

As I mentioned in the Cross-Cultural Team Managment section on pg. 20, there are three theories based on culture diversity (Mannix & Neale, 2005):

1. Similarity Attraction Theory

2. Social Identity and Social Categorization Theory

3. Information Processing Theory What needs to be said with these three theories is that I have had the possibility to experience them all, in both positive and negative actions. As a person who has lived and studied in four different countries by the age of twenty-four I know that I have adapted my personality to fit in everywhere and potentially no where. Therefore the similarity attraction theory is not only proposed to those of the same cultural background, but also those of a multicultural background.

I propose this goes for the second theory just as well. Lastly, the Information Processing Theory is clearly a factor that believes in the positivity of a multicultural organization, and for that all I can do is to strongly agree.

Peinado contemplated on her background, and how her position as a child changed in the Italian society after she started moving around the world with her family. After moving from Italy to Ethiopia, where playing with the local children out in the fields not being able to fully communicate outside of body language, became a normality. Going back to Italy became a shift for her, all of a sudden a feeling of disconnect was apparent. Being exposed to a multitude of cultures can create an opportunity of a heightened ability to observe and adapt, however some drawbacks can be a feeling of disconnect, and the ever-present notion of not entirely belonging anywhere and nowhere.

A person who has been exposed to multiculturalism has a larger ability to learn meanings of small messages and overlook usual stereotypes. They will in simple terms, have more of a positive interaction with other cultures.

This doesn’t happen overnight though; one has to work on being culturally open minded, and more importantly learn from ones mistakes. Melbin opened up about her encounter with an Asian company where the Swedish Marketing Director was adamant about giving watches as a gift to their Asian partners, however what he wasn’t aware of was that in Asia watches are seen as a negative gift because ‘time runs out’ which is not seen as a positive aspect in the Asian community.

Based on her story, we learn that a good intention can nonetheless become a negative experience.

B. Creativity, Teams & Organization

42 Stahl et al., “Unraveling the Effects of Cultural Diversity in Teams” (2010): 440.

43

Stahl et al., “A Look at the Bright side of Multicultural Team Diversity” (2010): 694.

32

Researching creativity in reference to multicultural organizations provides a lack of literature. It is a fairly under research field due to creativity being considered ‘unmanageable’, too ‘elusive’ or because if focus were put in creativity it did not produce an immediate payoff that for example execution improvements did (Amabile & Khaire, 2008).

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Senior Thesis: Frida Bystrom

Paris College of Art

Looking at this from a personal perspective I can see how this might sound plausible for uninformed managers, afraid for new ways on how to handle a business. This is a negative reality in desperate need for a change.

My literature provided me with an interesting angle; “executives must protect those doing creative work from a hostile environment and clear paths for them around obstacles.”44 Other research also states that there needs to be a lot of emphasis on the need to create a culture where creativity can grow; “returning to the image of a gardener who prepares the creative soil and nurtures the seedlings of ideas.”45 Fostering those that are practicing creativity in an organization is a great way to let it flourish and grow in a positive and healthy environment.

As Peinado argues “one need to know how to harness creativity, but also how to let it grow without stopping it. Creativity is more fluid, it is thinking outside the box, but one has to work towards it for creativity to grow and develop” which is similar to what Scott (2008) argues. Scott discusses motivation and encouragement in a creative organization, this particular factor ‘motivation’ is something we can all need in a moment of weakness. Comparing it to times in gym class when running the last mile felt absolutely impossible, however after encouragement from the teacher it felt at least plausible. This is tosay that most things are always achievable but to get there one might need some motivation.

By observing the potential creativity triggers that Amabile and Khaire (2008) writes about on page 12, leaders need to be aware of the creative flow in the organization as well as allowing people to pursue their passions.

This might sound like very simple and obvious guidelines for managers and leaders to follow, though actually, to follow through and take a step back can be a lot harder then it sounds.

“

Leadership can be described in several different ways, as an energizer and an organizer, or, leaders can also be seen as those who manage to get organizations and people to change, for the better (Maccoby, 2000). I know that leaders have a great responsibility, not only do they have to lead, but they have to motivate and encourage just as well. According to Maccoby (2000) “good leaders are not afraid to hire people who know more than they do” and I really agree with this quote. It is important as a good leader to not be afraid of what others can do, but rather how much more they can bring to the table

34

Amabile, Khaire ”Creativity and the Role of the Leader” (2008): IBID, 105.

Based on the literature that I compiled to answer my research question as well as the guidance of my thesis advisor, I propose that the leaderships best investigated are ‘Global leadership’ and ‘Creative leadership’. I personally attest that a Global leadership would be the most appropriate leadership style when evaluating and identifying leadership styles most applicable to creative teams. When studying page 15, Black et. al. (1999) states three especially strong skills that global leaders need: important characteristics for global leaders:

1. Learning and adapting

2. Managing relationships

3. Managing ambiguity

Overviewing these characteristics

re-instates my judgment that a

global leadership style is specifically

fitted to a multicultural creative

organization. However a multitude of

factors from different leadership

styles mentioned in said research

paper are all necessary to - Lubart, 2015

take cultural diversity and

personality diversity into account.

Culture is a fluid and changeable

form that will continue to create

problems, as well as positive and exciting outcomes. Leaders of organizations with multicultural backgrounds have an obligation to value and understand the differences that occur in people. However, just because one person comes from a specific culture does not mean that culture stereotyping is an acceptable form of understanding. Culture derives from the Latin word ‘agriculture’46, this means that a manager need to grow and harvest its’ organization in order for it to become a cultivating field that is working in harmony - thinking, feeling and acting together as one strong movement.

We all want to feel as we are important and valued at our job ”

C. Leadership Style

44 105.

45

Keyton (2011), argues that good managers believe that organizational culture is important because it is a useful tool to attract valuable employees as well as distinguishing themselves from their competition. It is critical that an organization has a leader that believes in the importance of organizational culture. In order for an organization to achieve its goal, a manager needs to bring people together with different strengths and skills. To have the opportunity to create a good communication stream with everyone in the organization is important, hence when communicating with potential clients every member of the team are on the same level of understanding (Keyton, 2011).

Therefore intercultural communication is key to organizations working across cultures.

Edward T. Hall first used the term intercultural communication is 1959. Hall was one of the first researchers to differentiate cultures on the basis of how communication is sent and received. Hall defined intercultural communication as communication between persons of different cultures (Chaney & Martin, 2007).

Interacting with people from other cultures than one self is a common occurrence in today’s society; globalization is occurring rapidly across borders. Referring this phenomenon of globalization to the business world, it is imperative that managers are aware of this, as well as being sensitive to the various differences that occur between cultures and how communication can be lost since culture and language are so closely correlated. Being able to fully understand a culture without understanding the language is difficult (Chaney & Martin, 2007).

Lubart was asked about the importance of communication in the workplace with the influence of culture, and he states that sometimes problems do arise in the workplace. He argued that when the communication strategy is mainly done on the upper level; leaving out communication on the lower levels creates negative vibes within the hierarchy. Employees on lower levels feel as if they are being misinformed/uninformed and not being kept in the loop; “We all want to feel as we are important and valued at our job.” Looking at the case Lubart provides us with, it is obvious that when employees of an organization are not being fully communicated with, problems occur; individuals of an organization are held together, positively or negatively, loosely or tightly - by their communication within and across the organizational structure (Keyton, 2011). When being asked the question of possible complications of communication in a multicultural environment, Melbin answers that it would of been a little bit more difficult, it would of taken more of an effort compared to the cultural environment that exists in the company today.

The six stumbling blocks that affect intercultural communication are great pillars to understand what intercultural communication really is (Barna, 1994):

1. Assumption of similarities.

2. Language Differences;

3. Nonverbal Misinterpretations

4. Preconceptions and Stereotypes

5. Tendency to Evaluate

6. High Anxiety ‘Tendency and Evaluate’ can be closely be related to the culture diversity theory by Mannix and Neale (2005) number two ‘Social Identity and Social Categorization Theory’. Clearly showing a connection between intercultural communication and multicultural organization through the key pillars of each category.

Through intercultural communication one can gain insight into the misunderstandings that take place in the world of business. Intercultural communication helps to (Sharma, 2011): • Heighten the awareness of different cultures • Clarify misunderstandings Bugagnani states that intercultural relationships are still an issue that occupies the world of business; “It is not enough to speak the language, it is not enough to work within the culture, it is a matter of respect of the working environment and how we perform in it.” Cultural references are challenging and they occur in every culture, it is through the lack of communications that we miss out, something so quotidian like communication can become our biggest obstacle.

Communication can ruin opportunities, destroy work relationships and be the reason why an organization is no longer functioning. Hence, in order for an organization to fully achieve its goal, intercultural communications is of outmost importance.

Literature has shown that people dismiss and reject intercultural communication as a term since most people believe that there are enough similarities between people that communication will come easily (Barna, 1994). This to me is an absurd way to look at communication, however people with little or no experience in a multicultural environment will have a hard time to look at it the way I do.

D. Intercultural communication Lost in translation is once again something we have all probably experienced once in our life, where the communication barriers are just too huge to overcome.

46 Johan Stier, Kulturmöten; En introduktion till interkulturella studier (Lund: Studentlitteratur AB, 2009) 26.

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Senior Thesis: Frida Bystrom

Paris College of Art

The purpose of my thesis was to investigate collaboration issues, culture differences and communication, particular to creative teams. Whereas my research question was to evaluate and identify leadership styles most applicable to creative teams. Based on my literature review and the results of my research a few important key objectives for leaders to acknowledge have transpired:

VI. RECOMMENDATIONS

• Multiculturalism adds an extra layer of complexity to any organization; different cultures and different languages among the members of the organization can be a challenge in the collaboration process. As a leader you need to know how to manage and how to leverage those differences. How that would be accomplished is through the ability to listen, to be adaptable and to utilize the expertise on the workplace.

• Multiculturalism creates a breeding ground for creativity; different backgrounds, norms and values allows for novel ideas to be assembled. Leaders need to allow the members of the organization a free and open space where they can be creative within a nonjudgmental environment. Although leeway is of importance, creativity has to conform to some sort of framework in order to capture it. Lastly, leaders need to have knowledge about different cultures and their view of creativity so that those members can be acknowledged and be given the tools to achieve their fullest potential.

• Everyone has the opportunity to be a leader, but not everyone can be a leader. Great leaders need to know how to adapt to any situation; human beings are not simple, especially in a multicultural setting. Different cultural backgrounds as well as personality backgrounds adds to that complexity.

Ways to handle this as previously stated is through an open communication channel and structured framework so that the members of the organization know how to relate to the methods of leadership and its regulations. This is to avoid conflict among the members of the organization.

36

37

Senior Thesis: Frida Bystrom

Paris College of Art

VII. CONCLUSION

38

My research question was to evaluate and identify leadership styles most applicable to creative teams. Through my interview study and literature study I can conclude that a large quantity of factors that ‘Global Leadership’ consists of, such as collective creative process and global mindset, alongside a mix of creative leadership is the most suitable form of guidance. Based on both literature and interviews it is clear that multicultural organizations are more complex systems due to an accumulation of cultures, background diversity and different norms and value beliefs.

The downside of this creates communication issues and cultural misinterpretations; nevertheless, the upside enhances creativity and innovation, which in the long-term perspective generates a more successful organization.

39

Senior Thesis: Frida Bystrom

Paris College of Art

A. Introduction How do you keep creative people in a multicultural organization engaged and motivated? Based on part one of this paper the conclusion read that the most suitable leadership style for a creative organization is ‘global leadership’ as well as a mix of ‘creative leadership’. Why this is not pinpointed to one specific leadership style is due to the different want and needs individuals from different cultures and differences in personality require. Therefore as already stated on pg.15, global teams “requires skillfully managing large differences in member backgrounds, across geographic distances, while resolving problems and making decisions on highly complex and important tasks.”47 Global leaders need especially strong skills in three areas:

1. Learning and adapting

2. Managing relationships

3. Managing ambiguity Thus, based on a global leadership style in a creative multicultural organization the way to lead is through learning, adaptation and the importance of relationship building. A leader that is immersed in a global organization working across cultures are likely to work in a multilingual team (Lauring & Selmer, 2009), while collaborating with an organization speaking one or more languages different from said organization is using. Due to communicational barriers and culture differences that will occur in-house in the organizational team, the problems will most likely also happen out of-house.

VIII. PROJECT In this chapter I intend to show the reasoning behind using global leadership as the main style when leading a multicultural team. I will also investigate the problems that can arise in an organization, and based on those problems what solution would be best applied.

Gamification can be executed in different ways and the most applicable way for this project is through an online platform. The argument for that decision lies in the fact that an organization working on a global scale across cultures will have access to a computer, either on a personal level or through the company.

Assumptions being made that everyone has a computer at work, one can also draw a conclusion that Internet access will be available; hence an online platform is the smartest, easiest and most versatile way to handle this project.

The main concept of this gamification tool is that the user will be the central figure while playing the ‘game’. This will hopefully engage and motivate even the laziest employee.

Repetitive work and simple but time consuming tasks etc. are jobs that can be seen as boring, therefore having a platform where you as a central character can be engaged, motivated and learn through an interesting and interactive online platform can positively enhance your day-today experience.

Needless to say, this gamification platform is not only focused on the bored and the lazy, it is also for the stressed, creative, hardworking and curious employee.

2. Goal Keep motivation levels up in an interesting way to create a more engaging, motivated and encouraged multicultural organization

A tool that can simplify or eliminate cultural and communicational problems would be of high value to a multicultural organization. Not only is this tool useful to avoid problems that arise in the workplace, but as stated earlier, the creativity and motivational factor are also of high importance. Hence, based on research the best artefacts for an organization would be an online gamification platform available for everyone in the company. As already mentioned, gamification is; “a tool for empowerment (and not only engagement) achievable and understandable by everyone, as a design methodology that balances performance, fun and meaning in our jobs, lives, products and services.” 48 1. Key Insights The idea of a gamification platform is so that it will provide an engaging and ‘easy to use’ component in a busy work schedule. As the meaning of gamification stated, it ‘balances performance, fun and meaning in our jobs’ which is paramount based on the factors that we have discovered thus far.

40

47 Maznevski, DiStefano “Global Leaders are Team Players” (2000): 195.

48 About this course [essay on-line], avilable from https://iversity.org/ en/courses/gamification-design-2015; Internet: accessed 20 October 2015.

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Senior Thesis: Frida Bystrom

Paris College of Art

A. Background Research

IX. GAMIFICATION In this chapter I intend to show background research on the concept of gamification. What it has been used in so far, what possibilities gamification can provide to an organization and what gamification platforms exist today and how they can be used in my advantage.

42

According to Yu-Kai Chou, an experienced Entrepreneur and one of the earliest pioneers in gamification49, before 2003 very few cared and very few knew about gamification. This is not a very long time ago, which makes it an interesting tool as it has grown so rapidly in just over ten years. Chou says, “good gamification does not start with game elements, but starts with core motivational factors” (2014). As one of the earliest pioneers in gamification, Chou created what he calls the ‘Octalysis’.

Octalysis is eight planes situated on an octagonal shape and they consists of:50 1. Epic meaning & Calling “You feel bigger, better and greater than you are” 2. Development & Accomplishment “You are leveling up” 3. Empowerment of Creativity & Feedback “Utilize your creativity” 4. Ownership & Possession “You own something, you want to protect it” 5. Social Influence & Relatedness 6. Scarcity & Impatient “You want something just because you can have it” 7. Unpredictability & Curiosity “You don’t know how it ends so you will continue playing until you do” 8. Loss & Avoidance “You do something to avoid loss”

49 About Chou [essay on-line]; available from http://yukaichou.com/ gamification-expert/#.VyPPAaN95bU; Internet; accessed 10 April 2016.

50 Gamification to improve our world; available from https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=v5Qjuegtiyc; Internet: accessed 10 April 2016.

Analyzing these eight planes shows that there are positive and negative emotional outcomes when being immersed in gamification, however Chou claims that an organization will perform better through the use of gamification (2014). This is not just because playing a game is fun, it also motivates and enhances creativity alongside relationship building.

1. Gamification Progression Investigating today’s gamification market shows that it is being used by companies’ world wide more at an increasing speed. Basing this investigation on the fact that organizations are becoming more focused on innovation and creativity makes sense as the popularity of gamification is growing.

Janaki Kumar, Head of Strategic Design Services in SAP’s design and co-innovation center51 and a prominent figure in the filed of gamification, states that the opposite of ‘work’ is not ‘play’ but it is actually depression (Brian Sutton Smith, 2015).52 The public has to change their idea of ‘play’, it is not something only children do, or young male adults hibernating in their parent’s basement. These examples are generic ideas of what type of people who play games are, and this common conception is what we have to change. If we manage to change ‘play’ from a somewhat negative connotation to rather a positive action; gamification should give the opportunity to mix play and work (Kumar, 2015).

51 Janaki Kumar [essay on-line]; available from https://uxmag.com/ contributors/janaki-kumar; Internet: Accessed 10 April 2016.

52 The opposite of work is not play - it is depression [essay on-line]; available from https://neuroscience.stanford.edu/news/opposite-play-not-work%E2%80%94-it-depression; Internet: Accessed 10 April 2016.

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Senior Thesis: Frida Bystrom

An other positive and effective factor of gamification is that it is an eLearning tool, this means that if a company can’t afford to send their employees away they still provide the necessary learning outcome for their employees. Through eLearning an employee can pace it accordingly to his or her preferences and complete it on their own time, Kumar declares that “an engaged workforce requires an educated workforce”53 and I believe this statement is exactly what gamification can provide for an organization.

2. Importance of Innovation In the TedTalk by Kumar (2015) she covers the topic of innovation in the workplace and how much more important it has become in recent years. She says; “ You are expected to bring creativity and engagement to work since today’s society success in a company originates from innovation.”54 We live in a very global world and we are expecting to be more and more creative and innovative so that our company sticks out and attains more profit each year. These are high stakes, and most of the times hard standards to reach. Having the pressure to always be ‘new and innovative’ is extremely pressuring and can create negativity when it is not achieved.

As Peinado stated in her response to creativity – it can’t just be taken out of a hat when it is needed, creativity needs to be fostered and worked on, it is an ongoing process that needs focus and affection. Hence, gamification should eliminate all pressure and turn the process from anxiety filled to motivational and interesting.

3. Behavior A factor that is becoming more and more evident, which both Kumar (2015) and Gabe Zichermann (2014) discuses in their TedTalks “Gamification at work”55 and “Engaging Millennial with Gamification”56 and that is the fact that people are becoming more bored and more lazy in the workplace.

Zichermann is the world’s foremost expert and public speaker on the subject of gamification, user engagement and behavioral design.57 He discusses the revolution of gamification and how necessary it is to use as a tool in the workplace as more and more millennial are being integrated into the work community. Why this is of great need is due to millennial being easily distracted, and through the powerful use of games it will conquer boredom. Zichermann argues that there are three F’s to be valued in gamification and those are:

1. Feedback

2. Friendship

3. Fun

44

53 Gamification at work; avilable from https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=6wk4dkY-rV0; Internet: accessed 10 April 2016.

54 IBID. 55 IBID 56 Engaging Millennials with Gamification; available from https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZga0AmCGdE; Internet: accessed 10 Arpil 2016.

57 About Gabe Zichermann [essay on-line]; available from http://www. gamification.co/about-gabe-zichermann/; Internet: accessed 10 April 2016.

Paris College of Art

The more amounts of F’s a game includes the more interesting it will be. Positive reinforcement loop is a way for people “to follow their bliss” (Zichermann, 2014).

Kumar discourses about engagement behavior and how to change behavior through positive motivation. The Gallup employee engagement survey58 (2013) states that: • 13% of employees are seen as engaged in the workforce • 63% of employees are seen as not engaged in the workforce • 24%of employees are actively disengaged in the workforce These figures are definitely discouraging, and if “business leaders are willing to find new ways to lead, gamification will help with this” (Kumar, 2015).

Engaged in the workforce 13% Not engaged in the workforce 63% Actively disengaged in the workforce 24%

The Gallup Employee Engagement Survey (2013 4. The fields of Gamification An important factor to point out in the field of gamification is just how diverse it not only can be, but also already is.

Just to name a few, gamification exists in these fields (Chou, 2014):

1. Medicine

2. Education

3. Entrepreneurship

4. Cars & Roads 5.Design B. Trends Observing the fields of gamification and where they exist, some trends that can be detected are games that approach the user as a central character with a highly interesting reward system. One of these games came out of a medical problem regarding AIDS that researchers were trying to solve for years.

58 Worldwide, 13% of Employees are Engagaed at Work [essay on-line]; avilable from http://www.gallup.com/poll/165269/worldwide-employees-engaged-work.aspx; Internet: accessed 1 May 2016.

They distributed the problem into a gamification model, to see whether gamers could solve something they had worked on for a decade, three weeks later it was solved.59 Another gamification that was very successful originated from Kevin Richardson who won Volkswagen’s The Fun Theory, which the Swedish government adopted to fix the speed limit on the Swedish roads. “The ‘Speed Camera Lottery’ works in a way that it notices you when you come in at or under the speed limit. It then automatically enters you in a lottery. And here’s the really smart part: the prizes come from the fines paid by speeders.”60 Lastly, a third example of a field that has been penetrated by gamification is addressed to children. Pain Squad is a game focused to children in hospitals getting chemotherapy treatment. It is created so that patients that are often too tired to fill out detailed pain journals can be motivated to do so through the Pain Squad app, in simple terms, Pain Squad let’s the children act as a detectives in order to ‘detect’ their pain. “From the beginning we worked to create intrinsic rewards and not rely on tangible incentives to drive compliance, the idea 59 Computer gamers solve problem in AIDS research that puzzled scientists for years [essay on-line]; available from http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/ notrocketscience/2011/09/18/computer-gamers-solve-problem-in-aids-research-that-puzzled-scientists-for-years/#.Vxo2QZN95bU; Internet: accessed 10 April 2016.

60 Swedish speed-camera pays drivers to slow down [essay on-line]; available from http://www.wired.com/2010/12/swedish-speed-camera-paysdrivers-to-slow-down/; Internet: accessed 10 April 2016.

of exclusive access to content only the kids can have had come up earlier and once the Pain Squad concept was fully developed, we put the two together.We reached pretty high to get celebrities involved to deliver on this. Their generosity was amazing. The project struck a chord for everyone involved.”61 Explains Brent Choi, Cundari CCO. C. Users Observing the fields of gamification and where it exists, it is clear that it has a wide range of consumers based on what has been mentioned so far. Everything from struggling math students to obedient car drivers to design agencies using gamification just shows how versatile and useful a tool like gamification can be.

It needs to be said that based on current research and literature there are no similar gamification platforms out there alike the idea of my gamification project. There are several communication and motivational gamification tools however not specifically focused on a multicultural organization with focus on global collaborations.

61 Pain Squad Mobile App gamifies cancer treatment for sick kids [essay on-line]; available from http://www.fastcocreate.com/1680653/pain-squad-mobile-app-gamifies-cancer-treatment-for-sick-kids; Internet: accessed 10 April 2016.

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Senior Thesis: Frida Bystrom

Paris College of Art WEBSITE

LIVECUBE

4

FIRST TIME USER

REWARD SYSTEM

PRICE

5

4

2

5

CHOREWARS

2

3

5

4

5

NIKE+ FUELBAND

4

5

3

2

5

D. Benchmarking In order for my project to be successful it is necessary to do a competitive benchmarking analysis. Benchmarking is “a powerful tool for maintaining the competitiveness of the firm and it is a potential means to gain a competitive advantage.

Benchmarking can lead to a much clearer understanding of a company’s comparative strengths and weaknesses.”62 To specifically choose a competitive benchmarking analysis is because “competitive benchmarking is very valuable because it compares competing processes.”63 Ideally a competitive benchmarking analysis will be carried out based on two different approaches:

1. An anonymous study can be organized with a group of competitors and the client. This would reveal certain industry benchmarks.

2. A primary research can be carried out – for example, within the competition’s customer and supplier base to learn more about their processes.64 This however will not be the structure of my benchmarking analysis; I will compare each gamification product based on: • Website – simplicity and easy to navigate • First time use – how clear and accessible it is • Reward system • Price • Final outcome – what is the true purpose of the product

46

FINAL OUTCOME

62 Competitive Benchmarking [essay on-line]; available from http:// www.intelligentsia.net/our-services/competitive-analysis/competitive-benchmarking/; Internet: accessed 23 April 2016.

63 IBID. 64 IBID.

The three products that will be benchmarked are: • Livecube • Chorewars • Nike+ FuelBand Livecube is “the world’s most engaging event app”65 and “Livecube powers events for dynamic corporate meetings, conferences, volunteer programs, theater performances, and all kinds of meet up groups.”66 Customers of Livecube are Canon, Delta, Inc., University of Maryland just to name a few.

KEY: 1 - Unacceptable 2 - Bad 3 - Moderate 4 - Good 5 - Perfect Taking a closer look at some of the decisions made in the benchmarking analysis it is clear that Livecube has an overall top score compared to the other two. The only low grade that has been assigned to Livecube is the ‘Price’ factor, which is because of the high price that is connected to the service.

Their lowest price point is $95 and the highest price point is $945070 (depending on days spent utilizing Livecube).

However the ‘Final Outcome’ factor is a very positive aspect of Livecube since it is very clear what Livecube can provide to your organization and what Livecube can contribute to an event.

After Livecube comes Nike+ FuelBand, very easy to navigate as a first time user when checking out the website. The ‘Price’ issue is also a rather negative aspect for the Nike+ FuelBand; to purchase a band costs $14971, however it is a one-time cost, which deserves to be mentioned.

Lastly, Chorewars has a great concept and a really clear and rewarding ‘Final Outcome’, however ‘Website’ design and ‘First Time Use’ was of very bad outcome. Especially the graphics of the website are of very poor quality when thinking it is potentially applicable for office use, but when referring it to the possible use for children and parents, the monsters and the war-aesthetics makes sense.

Chorewars “lets you claim experience points for household chores.

By getting other people in your house or workplace to sign up to the site, you can assign experience point rewards to individual tasks and chores, and see how quickly each of you levels up.”67 Nike+ FuelBand “tracks your activity through a sport-tested accelerometer. Then translates every move into NikeFuel. Nike+ FuelBand tracks running, walking, dancing, basketball – and dozens of everyday actions. It also syncs up with a motivational web and mobile experience.”68 With the Nike+ FuelBand mobile app you can also “sync wirelessly, track your progress, and get extra motivation on the go. With the app you can compete with yourself, or share results with your friends to compare, compete and celebrate.”69 65 LIVECUBE; available from https://www.livecubeapp.com/ home#1; Internet: accessed 23 April 2016.

66 IBID. 67 What is Chore Wars?; available from http://www.chorewars.com/ help.php#what; Internet: accessed 15 April 2016.

68 How it works; available from https://securenikeplus.nike.com/plus/ products/fuelband/; Internet: accessed 15 April 2016.

69 IBID

70 LIVECUBE; available from https://www.livecubeapp.com/ home#1; Internet: accessed 23 April 2016.

71 How it works; available from https://securenikeplus.nike.com/plus/ products/fuelband/; Internet: accessed 15 April 2016.

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Senior Thesis: Frida Bystrom

Paris College of Art

A. Proposal My project, an online gamification platform will be called COMgame and it will unify: • Culture • Communication • Teamwork COMgame stands for ‘Communication’, ‘Organization’ and ‘Multicultural’ game platform. COMgame will specifically be focused on multicultural organizations in creative environments working across cultures while globally collaborating with other organizations. Its purpose is to enhance motivation in the workplace and make going to work a fun and educational experience.

It will be possible to apply COMgame before and during collaborations taking place. This is so that employees for example have the time to prepare and learn norms and values before pitching an idea to an organization with a different culture than said organization. It is also possible to play COMgame during collaborations in order for them to run smoothly to avoid any misunderstandings and conflicts that might arise.

B. COMgame Before Collaborations

X. COMGAME In this chapter I intend to show what my final project will look like. What my gamification platform will be called, what will it unify, what can be expected when using the platform and what will it potentially bring to an organization.

Why use COMgame before collaboration? First of all, the ideal user of COMgame is an organization who consists of different cultures but has a common culture such as the one it is situated in, which collaborates with an organization that has a completely different culture setting. When this occurs, COMgame is to be a useful tool for the collaboration to work at its most positive possibility. How will that work? Basically COMgame will help you learn the culture in advance through a specific and personalized algorithm set to the culture your collaboration interacts with. This in turn will allow you as a user to learn the culture, customs, norms and values. It will provide you with paramount dos and don’ts’s that can either build or break a relationship. COMgame will show that believing in stereotypes can be extremely problematic and devastating for successful collaborations. The final elements that will also be provided in COMgame are little things like helpful phrases and cuisine manners, i.e. what type of food will be expected, how to behave during meals and what is seen as rude or disrespectful when eating among colleagues.

C. COMgame During Collaboration Initially it is more helpful to use COMgame before collaboration has begun, however it is still a powerful tool to use as partnership is being built up and formed. Using COMgame during collaboration an organization can expect to get clarification of what is going right, or what might be going wrong. COMgame will help to clarify why actions might be going one way while it was said it were to be executed in another way.

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Communication models can be taken into consideration and helpful tools on how to be clearer and avoid misunderstandings while communicating will also be provided. When being in the midst of collaboration problems and conflicts will most likely arise, through COMgame those conflicts can be clarified and solutions can be given to solve them presently but also how to avoid them in the future.

Not only should COMgame give advice and pointers on how to best avoid misunderstandings and conflicts, it will also give the participant an overview of what kind of gifts can be applicable to give when meeting its collaborators. Also unimportant factors to some, such as dress code, hand shakes and eye contact will be thoroughly covered so that even the small however paramount things are covered and clarified.

D. Reward System A reward system is of importance when participating in a game. These can be distributed in very different ways, which can be seen in the Benchmarking analysis, however it is important that COMgame doesn’t provide rewards that will separate or create friction within the team, especially since its aim is to create motivation and foster teamwork and communication.

COMgame will reward each user even if the game is not ‘played’ to perfection or mistakes are being made, and that is because it would defeat the purpose of the goal of the game.

E. Personas A persona “is a representation of a user, typically based off user research and incorporating user goals, needs, and interests. Cooper categorizes personas into three types. Each has its own advantages and shortcomings.”72 Why this can be valuable to relate to when discussing COMgame is because the value of using personas can create better design. A good way to look at personas is through these four factors (Cooper, 2015): • Personas can be used to validate or disprove design decisions • Personas allow us to vet and prioritize feature requests • Personas are an inspiration in ideation • Personas are a key element in critiques A Mobile App Development (MAD) company situated in San Diego, United States of America is to pitch an idea to a very successful company situated in Jakarta, Indonesia ( JI).

This idea will be beneficial for both companies, however the American company has no previous experience working with an Indonesian company since the most ‘foreign’ country they have collaborated with has been so far Canada.

MAD has a large amount of Americans working in the company, but also contains a diverse cultural background amongst all of its employers. JI consist of mainly Indonesian employees.

72 Creating Personas [essay on-line]; available from http://www. uxbooth.com/articles/creating-personas/; Internet: accessed 23 April 2016.

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Paris College of Art

Looking at these three personas it is clear that none has any experience with Indonesian culture, as well as any other Asian culture.

Both Brown and Martinez are dedicated workers but only Brown seems to have the motivation to make a difference in the workplace. Both Martinez and Walker seems like unmotivated and unengaged participants in their workplace.

Martinez and Brown has experience with a second culture at a close and personal level, and Martinez even speaks two languages; English and Spanish.

As it seems, MAD Company has had no previous experience with working with another culture, and with a CEO that has a negative view on leaving America, COMgame will be the best and most effective solution for this company.

“I love going for some drinks with my colleauges on a Friday after work”

“Everyday is Golf day”

1. Emily Brown

2. Antonio Martinez

3. Charles Walker

Emily Brown, 27 years old and acting Project Manager at MAD Company. Brown grew up in California in a normal household with two older brothers.

Antonio Martinez, 35 years old and Vice President of Sales & Development at MAD Company.

Charles Walker, 45 years old and CEO of MAD Company.

Brown went to Caltech, California College of Technology, and did a year in Spain as part of her postgrad. Her experience in Spain was positive and ever since she has developed a passion for dancing salsa and seafood.

Brown is a smart albeit a young employee, she is confident in her expertise but has a lot to learn from her more advanced colleagues.

Brown is a social and outgoing person, but public speaking is not her strongest suit hence why she is thinking about picking up some acting classes so that she will learn to be more confident in front of people.

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“Sunday’s are the best since I can hang out in the backyard with my son playing ball”

Martinez came to the United States when he was four with his family; three older sisters and a younger brother. Martinez went to Santa Barbara City College and was the first person in their family to complete and graduate college.

Martinez has a strong bond with his Mexican heritage and goes back to visit his family as well as his wife’s family who are also Mexican as often as he can.

Martinez is a family man and only works what has to be done and tries to not take on too much of responsibility so that he won’t miss out on valuable family time.

Walker is a proud American and has always lived in America; he rarely enjoys traveling and leaving Americas boarders is a waste of time and messy ordeal according to Walker.

Walker grew up with a upper class family on Manhattan, New York and went to Cornell University.

He loves golfing and taking his clients out for drinks in the many fancy places of San Diego. Walker tries to invite any potential client to his home quarters, as that is where he is most comfortable.

Walker has a tendency to spend too little time in the office and his employees can sometimes feel neglected.

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Senior Thesis: Frida Bystrom

Paris College of Art

A. Prototype Development The prototype for COMgame will look as following: 1. Website COMgame will be an online platform due to easy access, competitor advantage and based on the fact that is the most functional game setting for an office layout 2. Multiple choice As a user you will be given a topic, for example ‘Communication’. Within that topic the user will be given a question or a statement with several multiple choices. Out of these choices only one can be correct, however the user will have to guess until getting the right answer. After every incorrect answer, a reason for it being incorrect will be given as ‘trivia’ to the participant.

4. Teambuilding COMgame will also provide is a way for the manager in charge of COMgame in said company, to see where most employees click the incorrect answer. Based on a compiled report listing the biggest faults and issues the team is lacking, i.e. greetings skills and stereotypes assumptions, said manager can then set up workshops or invite guest speakers to inform the organization on a deeper level on those issues.

Since the COMgame is made to motivate and engage it is important that it remains entertaining, however the end goal is the educational factor. It is important to focus on the factors that the team is lacking and not where the team is sufficient.

3. Rewards Rewards will be given to the participant when answering right, beating its top score or completing the task in a fast although correct manner. What is important to notify is that rewards will not be given as a way to single people out or make those who did not complete the task as fast not receive an award, which would be unjustified to the purpose of the game.

XI. PROTOTYPE In this chapter I intend to show how my project will look, what features it will hold and what one can expect while and after playing it.

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Rewards will first of all be given out with connotations to the culture the game is focused on. An example would be if a participant is using COMgame as a way to learn more about the Indonesian culture, a reward would be in the shape of a flower, specifically the Melati Putih, the national flower of Indonesia. This would enhance the cultural knowledge by giving the participant little clues and information that might come in handy.

When a participant has completed the game and has acquired a certain amount of rewards they will be added to the rest of the teams score. Together as a team will they then receive some sort of completion reward due to a unified effort. This reward might be an Indonesian dinner, an after-work with specific Indonesian beers. The importance of a final teamreward is that it is done together, will all the participants and with focus on the specified culture.

Depending on the country the company is ‘investigating’ different rewards related to the country in question will be given to the user

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Paris College of Art

XII. TESTING In this chapter I intend to test my prototype; COMgame amongst a selected group of people originating from vastly diverse cultures. Based on those results I can determine whether COMgame is a viable project that can be explored further, and might end up being a real service at one point.

Based on first-time trial testing of a group of people where COMgame was prototyped through an application named POP, the results were positive. The participant could on its own navigate through the prototype and answer questions under the Category of Do’s and Don’ts, situated in Indonesia.

The questions were based on relevant information for a foreigner visiting Indonesia where actions that would go against the Do’s could potentially be harmful of a possible collaboration with an Indonesian company. To give an example, one of the questions was as following: What is the most common response when negotiating with Indonesians?73 Yes No Maybe The right answer is ‘Yes’, and the prototype provided the participant with an answer the why ‘Yes’ was the correct choice: The correct answer is ‘ Yes’, but do remember that ‘ Yes’ can mean Yes, No and Maybe all together. Therefore make sure you understand which actual Yes you have been given during your meeting so that everyone are on the same page.

Most participants were intrigued by COMgame and interested in more information. The most successful aspect was that the participants understood the game and could navigate it on their own without supervision.

Based on my first-time trial testing I conclude that COMgame is a viable project and could be executed in the future.

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73 Trading with Indonesia, The Do’s and the Don’ts [essay on-line] available from https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/trading-indonesia-dos-dontsdr-nathan-gray; Internet: Accessed 28 April 2016.

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Paris College of Art

XIII. CONCLUSION In this chapter I intend to test my prototype; COMgame amongst a selected group of people originating from vastly diverse cultures. Based on those results I can determine whether COMgame is a viable project that can be explored further, and might end up being a real service at one point.

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My research question was to evaluate and identify leadership styles most applicable to creative teams. Through my interview study and literature study I can conclude that a large quantity of factors that ‘Global Leadership’ consists of, such as collective creative process and global mindset, alongside a mix of creative leadership is the most suitable form of guidance. Based on both literature and interviews I concluded that a project suitable to my theoretical study would entail gamification. Based on the necessary factors that would be needed in a game that unified communication, culture and motivation I came up with COMgame; an online gamification platform that would incorporate Communication, Organization and Multicultural aspects.

COMgame would be a place for members of an organization to learn and enhance their knowledge about a culture that they are not familiar with in a space of encouragement.

The idea of incorporating COMgame into a multicultural workplace is to merge work and play together in a creative and educational way.

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Paris College of Art

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Fritz, R. The Path of Least Resistance: Learning to become the creative force in your life. New York: Fawcett-Columbine, 1989.

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Paris College of Art

APPENDIX 1 Interviewees: Alice Peinado Anthropoligist, Italian (personal and professional experience in Africa, Norway, France and United States) Annette Melbin HR Manager, Swedish (personal and professional experience in Asia, Norway and Germany) Todd Lubart Professor of Psychology at the Université Paris Descartes, American (personal and professional experience in France) William Maddeaux Area Chair for the Organisational Behaviour Area at INSEAD, American (personal and professional experience in France and Japan) Anne Bugagnani Design Consultant, French Linda Jarvin, PCA Dean and Professor of Cognitive Psychology, Swedish (personal and professional experience in Austria, France and United States) Martine Bruno Fashion Production Manager, French, (personal and professional experience in Asia, India, Turkey, Portugal, Hungary, Italy, France and Brazil) Brigitte Mozata de Borja Director and Founder of Design Management, French Fredrik Ulvenholm CEO at Ice House, Swedish (personal and professional experience in Indonesia and United States) Christophe Pradere Betc Design CEO & Founder, French APPENDIX 2 Questionnaire: Can you please tell me your name and your profession: Can you tell me about your background:

Where do you come from

Where did you grow up

Where did you go to school Can you tell me about your background in working:

Where you started working

Where are you working now

How did you get to where you are right now Based on what you just told me, how has your experience been when working at X company with Z employees?

Do you have any specific examples of an experience that has been especially memorable

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What is your opinion of culture, and can you define it?

Since you are based in X country, how do you see culture affecting the work environment?

Do you think different cultures has an affect on the dynamics of the organization?

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Have you been exposed to a multicultural setting or a multicultural organizations at any point in your professional career?

Has been a positive or negative experience?

Do you believe that Multiculturalism creates creativity?

And if so why/if not why?

What do you believe are the factors of a creative team?

What is your opinion of communication?

Do you believe communication to be an important part of a multicultural team?

Do you remember a time where you explicitly thought about communication and it was being dealt with positively or negatively?

When talking about management styles - do you believe they need to take cultural differences into account?

Is there anything else you would like to add/recommend etc?

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