- What do you think about their method of using Hofstede's national level characteristics to understand individual group members?

I believe that it points out characteristics that can help us better understand different cultures but it might also lead to stereotyping because after all we are all individuals and in the globalized world of today (that we all seem to be a part of) I guess stereotyping becomes rather a threat than a mean as it becomes almost impossible to fit any individual into the characteristics on a national level as we get as much global influence as local. However I believe Hofstede’s national level characteristics is probably a good start and can’t be ignored for a model of management of cross-cultural projects. However I feel the model is far from complete. I can’t really put the finger on what is missing but I am questioning how useful the model is. I also struggle a bit with how to define culture and I think it could make another interesting discussion in this forum :-) I found particularly important in any group work the level of individualism/collectivism also I liked the idea of defining trust as risk taking and the more willingness to risk/trust the higher probability of cooperative behavior.

- We are kind of in the "transition process" with this research group. How have you felt about the degree of ambiguity regarding what exactly we will be doing? Would you prefer this group to be either more flexible (defining your own role) or prefer a structure that is more pre-determined with someone telling you exactly what is happening and what your role is?

I do not mind flexibility but I also believe that personally I perform better when more pre-determined and structured.

- In your opinion, how much does culture really matter in distributed teams? In what way?
I believe culture does matter as we might behave differently and often understanding the cultural differences it also helps understanding differences or maybe even to us “strange” behaviors. What I believe matters even more though is the common goal and realizing that the cross-cultural collaboration is needed to reach the goal.