Exploring teamwork paradoxes challenging 21st-century cross-cultural conflict management in a multicultural organizational context

Abstract

This paper focuses on cross-cultural conflict and its management in a multicultural work environment affected by teamwork paradoxes, as perceived and experienced by multicultural team members working in project and management teams. A mixed research methodology was applied, using a quantitative confirmation of teamwork paradoxes in multicultural organizational environments, followed by a qualitative interpretivist approach exploring the perceived and felt cross-cultural conflicts and its management within the teamwork paradox context. Eight multicultural teamwork paradoxes were confirmed by 107 respondents to a survey questionnaire. Next, semi-structured individual interviews were conducted with 33 participants exploring cross-cultural conflict and its management within the eight identified teamwork paradoxes. The qualitative thematic data analysis provided insightful information on cross-cultural conflict management in multicultural team paradoxes relevant to project and management teams in a multicultural South African context. The multicultural team paradoxes and their managerial implications are explained in terms of cross-cultural conflict management on multiple levels.