Globalization creates the moving of people from country to country for business, so multi-culture working groups include the members who come from many regions in world-wide which have been appeared. It is undeniable that the effective working can be improved, but from the other side, these teams inherently exist many problems which not easy to solve.
Language barrier
English has been used as a common language in the international business. However, there are many misunderstandings due to pronunciation like missing stress, stumble, or using wrong words. An American staff, who works for a consulting culture group, said: “Sometime I stuck to express my feeling because of the difference of language. I saw that when I talk to American guy, he will be a leader. I understand this problem but it still makes me disappointed”. Other American man, who has been in charge of marketing group including both American and Japanese staffs, revealed: “It is absolutely an Americanized group. I do not care much about the Japanese staffs’ reactions. It seems that they are not professional like us, the native English speakers. Therefore, Japanese colleagues are rated lower than their abilities”. This point reduces remarkably a feasible for a penetration into Japanese market.
Members, who cannot speak foreign languages well, might be the best in their majors. Unfortunately, because of the communication, their abilities are hided in front of colleagues’ eyes. This problem should be clear before it becomes a bad situation. Internal contradictions will happen. As a result, poor men at foreign languages have no motivation and confidence to contribute ideas to the company. They always worry for their current position as well as a future promotion in the company. In general, the company also bears a lot of damages to the whole system productivity. For example, they invest money and effort in the multinational groups but receiving less efficiency.
Differences in communication culture
In Europe culture, communication is described as direct and straight conversation. It means that speakers can show their own thought in honest way during the meeting and their partners can understand immediately and not spend too much time to guessing the speakers’ intention. However, this definition is not suitable to the other cultures in the world, especially in some regions like Asia countries where people communicate with each other not only by verbal communication like words through the writing or words but also by non-verbal way such as attitude, body language which is showed in the face, etc. Therefore, sometimes, the true meaning of conversations can be under the message which was transmitted. For example, the Europe negotiators find out their partners’ significant information through direct questions such as “Do you choose A or B?” In contract, in Asia, people learn about the fact or hobbies of the others by deducing or guessing. As the result, in the parley which exist two different cultures, Asian can understand European’s communicating culture, but the comprehension is difficult for Europe.
Different viewpoint about the right in the office
When organizing groups, we usually apply flat-model which means that all the members have the same duty and power. In the group that includes many types of cultures, depending on each culture, there are different opinions about the position and the authority, so they do not feel comfortable with this architecture. In the view point of people who have a culture with respect to higher position, they always obey their boss's opinion without any opposite mind. Even they admit to be trampled on their honor. It has never existed in the democratic society.
A manager who is currently working for a credit agency of bank said, “In terms of culture, you have to keep a humble altitude; hence, whether you understand clearly problems or not, you should ask again. If you open yourself, you will get a respect. Unfortunately, it is not really true in US. The American thinks that I do not catch the main discussion at all. This point makes me feeling that the American judges my hesitation for the question.
Consequently, the differences about culture can lead to negligible conflicts in the company. This not only creates an uncomfortable working-environment among employees but also brings adverse effects for the hold team, so the manager should understand the abilities of each member to assess their at its true worth as well as the particular traits in each region to avoid the clash of interests or conflict due to dissimilar culture.
Subject: Which factors do create the challenges in multi-national working group? 
Tue Mar 18, 2014 12:20 am
I appreciate your academic essay about globalization and conflicts in culture. It could help me study this subject in some cetain extents 
