Multicultural work teams are increasingly common and provide a challenge to achieving the integration associated with greater effectiveness. The vague and abstract nature of many definitions of culture can make the difficulties in acknowledging and addressing difference challenging. This longitudinal study of a multicultural team follows the anthropological roots of cultural studies to focus on the material role of food and drink in team development. In an empirical, ethnographically-oriented study of a culturally diverse work team over time, we explored the ways that food and drink acted as boundary objects in processes of integration, differentiation and cultural adaptation and negotiation. By employing the lens of material culture, with its sensory nature and its associations with identity, we highlight the complexity of cross-cultural interaction, with its possibilities of cooperation, learning, difficulties and resistance. Our study shows that food and drink allow team members a grounded discussion of culture, accommodation and difference. We contribute to the multicultural team literature, emphasizing the roles of materiality, constrained choice, and complexity, translated into performance by the generative mechanisms of agency in context. We also identify specific contributions to practice arising from this research.

Links between cultural diversity and team performance remain unclear despite extensive research. This study critiques essentialist ‘Input-Process-Output’ logics to focus on team members’ sensemaking. Using observation and interview data from an ethnographic study of an Indian-German team over an 18-month high-pressure project, we used thematic analysis and event sequencing to map sensemaking of culture and performance over time. Team members initially constructed a prospective frame linking stereotypes of cultural difference to performance, which plausibly explained problems while protecting identity. This frame proved resistant to updating. While overt conflict was avoided, the failure to confront difficulties closed down alternative explanations and prevented innovation and learning. Team performance was evaluated both positively and negatively reflecting ongoing ambiguity around performance. The role of culture in performance was only challenged post-project after time for reflection. The longitudinal, ethnographic approach enables this research to contribute to sensemaking by demonstrating the importance of prospective framing and highlighting the role of identity and plausibility in resisting updating frames. We argue that essentialist conceptions of the unequivocal positive or negative outcome of cultural diversity as ‘double-edged sword’ should be reframed to stress agency and the importance of facilitating conditions for learning in multicultural teams.