Search

Background: Multicultural teams provide diverse skill sets, and members’ different experiences could through effective leadership be leveraged to improve organizational performance, especially in the agile organization. Effective multicultural team leadership can drive the goals of agile organizations and support their realization. The problem is organizational leaders have a critical knowledge gap on how the competencies and skills of managers can be utilized to improve the effectiveness of multicultural teams. Methodology: This integrative literature review focused on the study of current research findings on managers’ experiences in leading multicultural teams within agile organizations. This study is framed by two key concepts of agile leadership models and leadership emergence in multicultural teams. Findings: This integrative literature review provides in-depth knowledge to formulate new knowledge and recommendations for further research that can be applied to measure the leadership effectiveness of multicultural teams in agile organizations. Managers and leaders of multicultural teams need to have a high intercultural competence to successfully integrate employees with diverse cultural backgrounds in their teams and also to facilitate fruitful communication and knowledge sharing among them using agile management tools. Originality: This integrative literature review can be utilized by future researchers as foundational material in studies to extend theoretical foundations and to extend the results of prior related studies. It has helped to highlight managerial and theoretical implications and to inform recommendations for future research that could contribute to improving the leadership of multicultural teams and, thus, their performance within agile organizations.

Background: Most organizations in high-receiving immigrant nations lack insight into how a bicultural employee’s special skills might be leveraged to improve performance within agile organizations. Biculturals are recognized as an important segment of managers, organizational leaders have a gap in knowledge about this group’s distinctive experiences and the implications of such within their work environment. Methodology: This integrative literature review focused on studying current research findings on bicultural managers’ boundary spanning competencies and multicultural team effectiveness within agile organizations. A wide range of search terms was used to extract and select pertinent literature from numerous search engines and databases, with emphasis on studies published within the past 5 years and high number of citations. Findings: This integrative literature review provides in-depth knowledge for understanding the management experiences of biculturals in agile organizations and the implications of their bicultural competencies and skills in leading multicultural teams. Although many bicultural managers’ competencies and their effectiveness in managing related challenges are influenced by their work environments, they possess understanding of multiple cultures that can enhance team outcomes and complex team-level competencies associated with better performance. Originality: This integrative literature review can be utilized by future researchers as foundational material in studies to extend theoretical foundations and to extend the results of prior related studies. It has helped to highlight managerial and theoretical implications and to inform recommendations for future research that could contribute to improving the effectiveness and performance of multicultural teams within agile organizations.