Culture and teams

• Mean levels of team cultural values influence team processes and outcomes.
• Variance on team cultural values and birth country influence team functioning.
• Contextual variables strengthen or weaken the effects of variance on culture.
• Cultural values influence employee/team reactions to empowering leader behaviors.

We first review research on culture effects in teams, illustrating that mean levels of team cultural values have main (i.e. direct) effects, indirect effects (i.e. mediated by intervening variables), and moderating influences on team processes and outcomes. Variance in team cultural values or on country of origin (i.e. nationality diversity) also has main effects on team functioning, and we highlight contextual variables that strengthen or weaken these main effects. We next review research examining the effect of variance in team cultural values on global virtual teams, specifically. Finally, we review research on how cultural values shape employees’ receptivity to empowering leadership behavior in teams. We conclude by discussing critical areas for future research.