One of the factors for successful CyberSecurity in an organization is adherence to a common goal that is manifested through teamwork. We propose to do a brief study of the notion of “Team” through the prism of culture.

For this study, we cannot do without a reference to the work of Geert Hofstede, specifically the observations of the cultural dimensions “Individualism” and “Collectivism”. If we consider the cultural dimensions of Geert Hofstede, we would be tempted to associate collectivism with the notion of team and to deduce that the more a country has a high level of Collectivism and a low level of Individualism, the more its people have team spirit.

However, in the professional context, globalization has changed the face of teams. The teams are made up of people from different cultures, coming from different countries. So the indicators of geographic location and culture are intertwined. And there is no a frank border between people based on their cultures or geographic locations.

Some authors claim that members of the same culture share common points of view and they are likely to interpret and assess situational events and management practices in the same way. In contrast, members of different cultures are more likely to respond differently to the same event, approach, or managerial decision. This point retains its full meaning in a globalized world if we consider that when speaking of culture, we are talking about organizational culture.

Research on team composition concludes that homogeneous teams (all members of the same culture) are more satisfied and experience more positive reactions, while heterogeneous teams (with multicultural members) experience increased team creativity and a wide variety of solutions to a problem. Composed of individuals from different cultures, multicultural teams provide solutions to problems that homogeneous teams are unable to implement. Multicultural teams provide the opportunity to integrate widely different social, cultural and business perspectives into key decisions affecting the success of international operations.

The “ultimate” would therefore be a team made up of individuals from diverse cultures coming together
around the same organizational culture.

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