To assess the impact of multiculturalism on team performance, it is important to
consider the organizational context of the team, the nature of the team’s diversity,
and the relationship between these factors and the team’s task. Organizational cultures
derive from the history and experience shared by members of an organization
and individual behaviors formed by the national culture. Because of this, many
organizational cultures with a wide range of differences co-exist in a national culture
(Brannen 1994). Team members might be more homogeneous than the national
cultures they are part of, because they belong to similar educational, occupational,
and socioeconomic subgroups. On the other hand, team members might differ in
age, religion, race, locality, or other subgroup affiliations within a national culture.
Membership in diverse subgroups and social identity help explain why individuals
from the same national culture bring different behavioral expectations to a team
(Brannen 1994). In other words, members of a team represent both the national
cultures that they come from and quite possibly many other subcultures and identities.
Thus, multicultural teams must be seen as having many facets that are not limited
to diversity in national cultures.