| The globalization of business is being increasingly reflected on the shop floors and in the executive offices of American business. Nowhere is this growing national diversity likely to have more impact than in the strategic decision-making of an organization's top management team (TMT). Charged with defining a mission, vision, and strategy in a global economy, a TMT's national diversity represents a potentially invaluable resource upon which it can draw in exploring and interpreting its environment and charting an appropriate course of organizational action.; In order to exploit this resource, however, a TMT must first manage the effects of national diversity on its own decision-making process. Prior research on functional. demographic, gender, and ethnic diversity in decision-making groups consistently suggests that while diverse groups are more creative and produce better decisions than homogeneous groups, they also have a more difficult time reaching agreement or consensus on both the content and process of the decision-making task. The more extreme the diversity, the more difficult the task of integration and agreement. National diversity, with possible differences in language and customs as well as worldview, is a most extreme type.; The results presented in this dissertation represent an exploratory examination of the effect of national culture diversity on a top management team's ability to reach consensus in a strategic planning setting. To date, very little research has been undertaken to examine the impact of national diversity on decision-making groups and none has involved top management teams. This study utilized a single-case, multi-method research approach to examine the strategic planning process of the nationally diverse top management team of an international non-profit company based in the United States. Drawing on diversity and national literature, exploratory hypotheses were developed and tested. The preliminary findings suggest that while national diversity presents special challenges in a group decision-making setting, particularly in resolving language and customs differences, it can be managed at both the organization and individual levels. |
