The positive role of global leaders in enhancing multicultural team innovation Alon Lisak 1 , Miriam Erez 2 , Yang Sui 3 and Cynthia Lee 4,5 1 Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva, Israel; 2 Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel; 3 Department of Business and Administration, Donlinks School of Economics and Management, University of Science and Technology Beijing, No. 30, Rd. Xueyuan, Beijing 100083, China; 4 Northeastern University, Boston, MA, USA; 5 Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon, Hong Kong Correspondence: Yang Sui, Department of Business and Administration, Donlinks School of Economics and Management, University of Science and Technology Beijing, No. 30, Rd. Xueyuan, Beijing 100083, China. Tel: 86-10-62334699; e-mail: suiy@ustb.edu.cn Abstract This study contributes to the empirical research on leadership of multicultural teams from the Positive Organizational Scholarship perspective (POS). Following the information/decision-making processes perspective on team cultural diversity, we examined the positive effect of leaders’ global identity, on multicultural team innovation. We proposed that R&D, multicultural team leaders with high global identity foster team-shared innovation goals and motivate team members to adopt communication inclusion behavior, making sure that they all understand each other. Furthermore, we propose that the effect of fostering team shared innovation goals on communication inclusion will be stronger for teams with perceived high, rather than low, cultural diversity and that team communication inclusion will positively affect team innovation. Participants were 574 R&D multicultural team members, their leaders, and their leaders’ managers in 82 co-located teams in a Chinese branch of a large, German global organization. Using SEM analysis, our findings supported our research model, demonstrating that multicultural team leaders with high global identity leveraged cultural diversity to promote innovative goals, which further enhanced team communication inclusion and its positive impact on team innovation. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications to the POS perspective on cultural diversity. Journal of International Business Studies (2016). doi:10.1057/s41267-016-0002-7 Keywords: innovation and R&D; leadership theories; organizational behavior; structural equation modeling INTRODUCTION The growing presence of global organizations that operate across geographically dispersed and culturally diverse zones has led to the formation of multicultural teams composed of culturally diverse members (Haas & Cummings, 2015; Maznevski & Chui, 2013). The important contribution of multicultural teams to their organiza- tions is reflected in their steadily increasing proportion in global organizations (Stanko & Gibson, 2009). Multicultural teams enable organizations to operate across geographically dispersed zones and employ talented professionals from around the globe. They also benefit from the large pool of diverse knowledge, skills, and perspectives of their members (Gibson, Huang, Kirkman, & Shapiro, 2014). The integration of such culturally diverse cognitive resources of knowledge, ideas, experiences and perspectives enables team members to gain new insights and create innovative solutions (Gibson et al., 2014; Grant & Berry, 2011; Joshi, Lazarova, & Liao, 2009; Maznevski & Chui, 2013). Received: 13 January 2015 Revised: 17 April 2016 Accepted: 20 April 2016 Online publication date: 24 June 2016 Journal of International Business Studies (2016) 47, 655–673 ª 2016 Academy of International Business All rights reserved 0047-8210/16 www.jibs.net