Leading Across Borders: Navigating Cultural Differences in Multinational Organizations

Sammanfattning

Organizations increasingly rely on multinational teams in today's globalized business environment to maintain competitiveness and drive innovation. While cultural diversity presents opportunities for enhanced creativity and problem-solving, it challenges communication, leadership, and organizational integration. This study explores how leaders in multinational corporations (MNC) experience and discuss cultural differences and communication barriers in multinational organizations. A qualitative research design was used by conducting semi-structured interviews with 26 respondents with experiences from working as leaders in various industries. From this, insights were provided showing how leaders experience cultural differences and communication barriers and how they discuss this within their teams. The findings show that leaders who are open, humble, and willing to learn are more suitable for leading multinational teams. The collected data also shows the importance of team building and open communication for leaders in international corporations through team-building activities at the beginning of a project and flexible communication strategies. These strategies formed by the team leaders are especially valuable in the increasing use of hybrid working models. This research contributes to understanding how leaders experience and discuss cultural differences and communication barriers in multinational organizations.