Leadership Lessons from Managing Multinational Project Teams

The challenges of managing culturally diverse and globally dispersed project teams are examined in a field study of multinational product developments. Our objectives are to improve the understanding of the: (i) dynamics and interaction of culturally diverse project teams and (ii) influences of managerial leadership on performance. Special focus is on complex, technology-based, geographically dispersed project environments. The findings provide insight into the business processes, organizational conditions and managerial leadership style most conducive to high team performance in complex and culturally diverse project environments. The paper suggests a framework for assessing leadership effectiveness and makes recommendations for building high-performance multinational project teams.