The Chairwoman of the Board of Directors has selected you to lead the effort to create an international internship program for your organization. You will be leading a cross-cultural virtual team, including the vice president (VP) of human resources and department heads from all areas of the organization from its locations throughout the United States. The team is responsible for developing a 3-month summer program for 50 international interns. The international interns will be selected from university programs in their home countries, will travel to the organization’s U.S. locations, will live and work in the United States, and then may have the potential to be offered a permanent position with the organization.

Using the course resources and the CTU Library, research global organizational culture and respond to the following questions:

What best practices do you recommend for leading a virtual cross-cultural team?

How will the organization onboard the interns and introduce them to U.S. culture?

What are the benefits of the international internship program to the interns and to the organization?

• Provide a reference list at the end of your primary task response of up to 3 resources, and include in-text citations for them in APA format.
• Responses to Other Students: Respond to at least 2 of your fellow classmates with at least a 100-word reply about their Primary Task Response regarding items you found to be compelling and enlightening. To help you with your discussion, please consider the following questions:
• What did you learn from your classmate’s posting?

What additional questions do you have after reading the posting?

What clarification do you need regarding the posting?

What differences or similarities do you see between your posting and other classmates’ postings?

• For assistance with your assignment, please use your text, Web resources, and all course materials.

First student: Deborah

To lead a virtual cross-cultural team, I will need to communicate with the entire team the purpose of the team.  To do this I will need to ask the team questions about how they would like meetings to be performed, either through visual meeting chats or a conference call.  I would then determine when the best time is for those meetings since this will be a company-wide project. We will need to account for all time zones. I would then establish a communication management plan to help everyone know what meetings they will need to attend and who will be attending those meetings. After that communication plan is in place it will be time to develop an operating agreement that helps the team members interact with one another on all issues.  It will allow the team to address holiday and vacation issues, reports the status of what they are working on, deals with conflicts, and address individuals that do not show up for meetings. As the team lead, I would ask each division to explain how they do business and see if there are differences between divisions that I did not know about. This will help the entire team understand any roadblocks we may have when onboarding the interns. I will ensure that I am available to all team members during their office hours either by video call, phone calls, emails, or private messages.  I will need the lines of communication open to help address any issues that may come up. (Group, 2022) I would stress to the team members that we want to develop a program for the intern to excel with our organization and build them to become a member of our organization someday.

               The organization will onboard the interns using a video chat onboarding process for all locations of the organization that will have a summer intern.  This will allow all of the interns to meet each other and other managers throughout the organization, helping them know they are not alone. The direct manager of that intern will be present at that video chat onboarding to make sure that the intern has all the paperwork they need to begin working with the company and to help answer any questions the intern may have.  The manager will also be there to support the intern through this process. The culture of the organization will be explained in the employee handbook given to each intern on their first day.  We will start the onboarding with some training communicating the organization’s goal and asking the intern what they expect out of the organization during their internship. We will go over the employee handbook that addresses things like dress code, Human Resources, what the chain of command looks like, and how it works within the organization. We will then give them time with their direct manager to go over their roles and responsibilities while there are working for that manager and division. This could be a day-by-day, week-by-week, or month-by-month plan. (Marlowe-Giovetti, 2022)

               Having an international internship program benefits the intern and the organization.  The intern gets the job experience they will need when entering the workforce as well as an introduction to other countries and cultures. While interning a person will build strong business relations while building their professional networks. The organization will benefit from the intern’s new ideas they bring to the organization as well as the challenge of how you have always done business with those ideas. The company could gain fresh, qualified employees from this internship that brings in innovation, builds employer brand, and could enhance employees’ skillsets. (famousfaqs, 2022)  

References

famousfaqs. (2022, April 17). How do internships benefit companies? Retrieved from All Famous Faqs: https://allfamousbirthday.com/faqs/how-internships-benefit-companies/#:~:text=What%20are%20the%20benefits%20of%20the%20international%20internship,your%20communication%20skills%20in%20a%20diverse%2C%20cross-cultural%20setting.

Group, C. E. (2022). Top 6 Best Practices for Managing Virtual Teams. Retrieved from Corporate Education Group: https://www.corpedgroup.com/mobile/pm/6BestPractic…

Marlowe-Giovetti, O. (2022). 7 Things to Know for Intern Onboarding. Retrieved from Whole Whale: https://www.wholewhale.com/tips/7-things-know-inte..

Second student : David 

When leading a cross-cultural team, there are a few best practices that come to my mind to ensure a successful and productive environment for all. One of those best practices involves providing feedback to team members. I believe it is extremely important to ensure that you are providing feedback to team members in a way that is effective for them as an individual. The best way to ensure that you accomplish this goal is to ask the team member. Ask them how they receive feedback the best. 

Something else to consider when leading a cross-cultural team is the onboarding process, and how you can best introduce the team members to American culture. When it comes to onboarding, I believe that it is best to immediately lead with introducing the team member to the company as much as possible, explaining in as much detail as possible what we do, and why we do those things. I find that establishing a mentor or “buddy system” is best in ensuring that you are meeting the transitional needs of the new team member. Another consideration for this technique though is ensuring that you have quality mentors, who are personable and want to be there for the new team member.

Lastly, why bring in cross-cultured interns in the first place? Well, there are many reasons. One benefit to the interns selected for the program at your organization is a better standard of living than where they came from. This could lead to the intern starting an entirely new/better life than they would be able to have in their home country. A benefit to the organization would be an ability to gain a better understanding of the area/country that the intern is from, and potentially have a liaison to establish working relationships or partnerships abroad. 

References

BuSuu. (2022, January 1). BuSuu. Retrieved from BuSuu Web Site: https://business.busuu.com/resources/post/cross-cu…

Globalization Partners. (2019, March 28). Globalization Partners. Retrieved from Globalization Partners Web Site: https://www.globalization-partners.com/blog/tips-f…

Institute, P. M. (2017). A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide)–Sixth Edition (6th Edition). Chicago: Independent Publishers Group (Chicago Review Press). Retrieved from A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide)–Sixth Edition (6th Edition): https://coloradotech.vitalsource.com/books/9781628…