First, I have to provide some disclaimers: I had to read the article
slowly, with a pen, and sometimes re-read some passages. I have clearly
a few things to catch up with cross-cultural management literature.
and that's fine, that's why I join the team. To learn. So please, be
patient with me if there is some questions or concerns that I am
raising where you would consider there is no questions or concern to
have. So here we go (let's try "trust"):

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

I was convinced by Evaristo's use of Hofstede's model to support his arguments. However, I was not convinced by the Hofstede's model completely. This leads me to questions a few of Evaristo' statements.

My first concern is about the reliability of the 1980s analysis of the world cultural dymanics by Hofstede and the usage of such tool for today's more global society (both humanly -people relocate more-, and technologically -communication and netiquettes have been discussed since).

Second, I have a fundamental doubt that national characteristics can be generalized to the individuals, especially if Evaristo is going to use them for cross-cultural projects. a) I think that national characteristics are more a product of political manipulation on the general population more than a geo-cultural influence from the people (although I have nothing to substantiate this except my own traveling and observing experiences). b) I would tend to believe (just an hypothesis right now) that individuals such as ourselves, would fall in the cracks of Hofstede's model as "exceptions" or "anomalies." The reason is that we self-selected to be part of this group, knowing the group's proposed goals. Those goals have somehow already helped in determining who (individualism/collaborative, etc) would be interested in participating. Also, should we assume that Minjuan and I are more collaborative and more feminine in our cultural characteristics according to Hofstede (i.e., because we are both from a more "social" -with differences of degree- countries, i.e., China and France)? How would some 12 and 15 years of being in the United States count toward possibly changing one's "original" tendencies? Does Hofstede's model allow for such variable in the individual's cultural make-up? All these questions are valid for all of the other members due to the extensive traveling or global awareness that most of the group has experienced (based on the posted bio)...hence, already influenced one's "native" country characteristics.

Third, Hofstede's model was certainly drawn from thousands or more samples of individuals across countries....the IMPDET team is made up of one individual from one country. I think that it would be a stretch, and possibly a danger, for us to draw cultural conclusions on each of our native origins. Not to completely dismiss Hofstede's model, I think that this is still a place to start....but maybe it is time to update the model to today's more wired and global world?

Fourth, (p65 last paragraph), "distributed projects have a natural tendency to flatten the perceived hierarchy, since direct managers become less visible"...how so? I thought that culture dictates relationships. So if my native culture has trained me to understand that decisions are made by the manager of the project, why/how does the technology force me to change that? The rest of the paragraph (continues p66) feels more like a westerner/US (i.e., more individualistic) bias on the part of the author.

(One non-content-related problem I had with the article in general is some general organization of ideas in paragraphs or APA formatting. I am under scrutiny right now -or rather a couple of articles of mine are- and APA being my doom so far, I got a little annoyed at some lack of APA formating, such as p60, paragraph 4, list of authors and dates is not alphabetized; or citing "Marks et al. (2001)" p60, end of paragraph 5, when "Marks et al." have never been cited before). Sorry for the nitpicking.

• 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?

p63: "In the transition processes, the level of task structure or formalization is lowest", dealing with a lower structure, more uncertainty, and possible power distance issues. I am quite at ease with the current state of this research team. And based on this reading, it has become more evident (to me) that we are following a certain protocol for a successful cross-cultural distributed project team. We had to answer a few questions (not to mention the now obvious "trust" question), publish a bio, discuss a couple of personal items, heard each other's voices...So I would speculate (quite knowingly based on the goals established for the team) that we are our own participants in figuring out a possible argument or new model for multicultural collaborative teams.

In fact, I have indexed a couple of paragraphs as "IMPDET" such as p62 paragraph 3, and p66 paragraph 3. I even wrote "IMPDET challenge?" in the margin of paragraph 3 p66 last sentence: "...if in addition to distance across locations, the cultural heterogenerity of groups is high, it is harder to develop trust among stakeholders."

Right now, I feel on target, knowing what is asked of me (role and task). I think that this could be interpreted in me feeling safe right now, in the role of the learner...

• In your opinion, how much does culture really matter in
  distributed teams? In what way?

I think that culture is extremely important. As I said earlier, Hofstede is a good place to start, but the world and societies have changed since the '80s. So I would not dismiss Hofstede's cultural model, but would be interested to see how we can alter it so that it is a better predictor of the current technologically-enhanced neo-web 3.0 world. Not to mention that our team is made of individuals already being "anomalies" (what are the global stats equivalent to "20% of Americans have a passport"? or geography literacy and global awareness? or terminal degree holders?). So "distributed teams" would also have to be "defined" as academic, business, etc...with most likely differing distinctive characteristics.

I think that culture matters in distributed teams because of being culturally awaress provides a "safe platform," i.e., allowance for misunderstanding, explanations not taken personally, egos a little more in check, appreciation for each other's knowledge of/gap in the language of mediation, etc.I think that Culture is very important in bringing creativity, new ideas, and other motivational elements to a distributed teams due to the different world views on problems/questions/tasks.

And it could also be a reason for a disastrous project (for all the reasons cited above). Hence trust.

hi,

I try to answer some of the questions regrading to the article. The first question is not clear to me but I will try to answer as I understand it. Hofstede developed a cultural model that helps to describe the cultural diversity among nations. I think a nation means the totally of indidividuals. What is true for the nation may apply for the individual group members. His model could taken as a starting point to understand the cross cultural reasearch teams.

Regarding to the second question, prior knowledge and experience is important for our future activities. I personally new to our project, except few readings on culture. I need to read more and practical engagement to decide my own role. Therefore I prefere more pre-determined with someone telling me what I am going to do in this phase of the project.

In my opinion, culture affects the work of distributed team performance. When you are working in a team, if you are from the same culture, you can easily understand with each other. Your previous experience help for quick and smooth flow of ideas. You can easily understand the meaning of the word without too much explanation. But in multicultural teams, there are many gaps to understand with each other. Sometime I may be relectant to express my feeling to some other person. Becuase I don't know how the other person interpretes it. In our society culture, what ever you say, people say you - that is nice, that is good but they will not tell you their real feelings becuase of the fear that thier word my spoil their future relationship.

In addition to culture, there are also other factors that affect the virtual team- what is the environment in which we are operating. That affects the individual team performance. The problem in Ethiopia may not be a problem in Finland. If I raise it as a problem, the others may not even understand how it is a problem because they may not heard it or experienced it before.

Temtim, Ethiopia