Attitudes towards Collaboration in Multicultural Teams in the opinion of Polish and Chinese Students

Abstract

The main goal of this paper is to present results of research that addresses the issue of attitudes towards working in both multicultural and single culture teams among Polish and Chinese students. The relationship between those attitudes and factors that includes individual experiences of research participants as well as characteristics of team tasks was analyzed. The research was conducted with students of one Polish and one Chinese technical university as participants. Research findings indicate that there are several important similarities as well as differences in preferences of two analyzed groups. The most important differences pertain to stronger preference of Polish students towards working in a single-culture team when the task requires assuming responsibility, trust and mutual understanding of team members. Additionally, the declared level of experience in single-culture and multicultural team was differently related with preferences towards these two kinds of team among Polish and Chinese participants. Obtained results may be utilized in order to develop recommendations for effective educational efforts aimed at developing multicultural teamwork competencies of future managers and specialists from both of these countries.