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Theory-Guided Modeling and Empiricism in Information Systems Research pp 187–206Cite as

Managing the Impact of Differences in National Culture on Social Capital in Multinational IT Project Teams – A German Perspective

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Abstract

Social relationships within multinational teams are often burdened by cultural differences between the team members. Severe difficulties arising from such differences include conflict, mistrust, and miscommunication (Salk and Brannen,2000). This in turn hampers the creation of social capital within the team and thus leads to sub-optimal knowledge exchange, collaboration, and project performance. Consequently, numerous studies consider cultural differences in the context of multinational teams and propose various management actions that can be taken to overcome resulting problems in the network of relationships among team members (e.g., Carmel, 1999; Carmel and Agarwal, 2001; Earley and Mosakowski, 2000; Govindarajan and Gupta, 2001; Oshri et al., 2007; Sarker and Sarker, 2009; Walsham, 2002).

Another version of this paper appeared as: von Stetten, Alexander, Beimborn, Daniel, Weitzel, Tim, and Reiss, Zita, “Managing the Impact of Differences in National Culture on Social Capital in Multinational IT Project Teams – A German Perspective,” Proceedings of the 19th European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS 2011).

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Information Systems and Services, University of Bamberg, Feldkirchenstr. 21, 96052, Bamberg, Germany

    Alexander von Stetten, Dr. Daniel Beimborn, Prof. Dr. Tim Weitzel & Zita Reiss

Authors
  1. Alexander von Stetten
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  2. Dr. Daniel Beimborn
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  3. Prof. Dr. Tim Weitzel
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  4. Zita Reiss
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Alexander von Stetten .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Fak. Betriebswirtschaftslehre, LS ABWL und Wirtschaftsinformatik I, Universität Mannheim, Schloss, S 220, Mannheim, 68131, Germany

    Armin Heinzl

  2. Fachgebiet Wirtschaftsinformatik, TU Darmstadt, Hochschulstr. 1, Darmstadt, 64289, Germany

    Peter Buxmann

  3. , Business Information Systems, University of Kaiserslautern, Gottlieb-Daimler-Str., Kaiserslautern, 67663, Germany

    Oliver Wendt

  4. Information Systems and Services, University Bamberg, Feldkirchenstr. 21, Bamberg, 96045, Germany

    Tim Weitzel

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von Stetten, A., Beimborn, D., Weitzel, T., Reiss, Z. (2011). Managing the Impact of Differences in National Culture on Social Capital in Multinational IT Project Teams – A German Perspective. In: Heinzl, A., Buxmann, P., Wendt, O., Weitzel, T. (eds) Theory-Guided Modeling and Empiricism in Information Systems Research. Physica-Verlag HD. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-7908-2781-1_10

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