Challenges with international teams
There are many challenges that come with collaborating with international teams. One of the most common is language barriers and cultural differences. For example, you may have a meeting scheduled for Thursday morning but your global counterparts’ work week starts on Monday. This can be frustrating when you need to communicate quickly and efficiently about project updates or changes in scope.
Therefore, how can we manage these challenges?
The most important thing is to spend time upfront identifying and addressing potential barriers. The more you know about the other team members’ culture and what they are used to doing at work, the better prepared you will be for any hiccups that may come up later on down the line.
Putting in this extra effort before hand can make a huge difference when it comes to collaboration with international teams!
In the past, international collaborations were largely limited to a few big players.
Today, there are over 80 million startups across the globe with strong ambitions for growth and exponential increases in startup activity in emerging markets. The scale of today’s global market is such that it offers many more opportunities for entrepreneurs but also much greater potential complexity when collaborating internationally. With so many new sources of innovation coming from diverse cultures around the world, working together has never been more important or challenging.
Challenges include: language barriers; access to funding; different business models and organizational structures; differing regulatory environments (e.g., data privacy); competition from local firms which sometimes lack transparency concerning intellectual property rights ownership limitations on technologies obtained through joint research agreements “It can be difficult to communicate and coordinate work when teams are located in different time zones, speak different languages, or have contrasting cultures.”
Difficulty communicating
Coordination of work with differing team members
Reviewing content from another country for plagiarism
Communication challenges due to cultural differences.
Cultural difference confusion between countries/cultures (i.e., greetings)
“Communication breakdowns happen because people don’t understand one another’s culture, such as the use of sarcasm.” Difficulty understanding other cultures’ customs and habits when working on projects together across borders.