globalization of the world’s economy
The globalization of the world’s economy has driven many organizations to create collaborative configurations in which teams of workers from multiple regions collaborate in synchronous and asynchronous settings. Such virtual teams are not, however, immune to the challenges of navigating cultural issues and work styles. Leadership must take into account not only geographic and time differences, but also interpersonal dynamics that may be culturally-derived.

Design a set of best practices for the leadership of cross-cultural, virtual teams. Consider the following questions in your design:
• What are the challenges posed by cultural diversity among team members? Pay particular attention to the ways in which cross-cultural teams are unique.
• How important is an understanding of the individual cultures represented on the team to successful team management? Should your best practices be culture-specific or apply to cross-cultural management in general? Cite specific examples in your analysis.
• What are the human resource considerations for designing cross-cultural and/or virtual teams? How are considerations for these two groups similar or different?

Reading materials:
1. Symons, J. & Stenzel, C. (2007) ‘Virtually borderless: an examination of culture in virtual teaming’, Journal of General Management, 32 (3), pp.1-17, Business Source Premier [Attached as “reading material 1”]
2. Lee, M.R. (2009) ‘E-ethical leadership for virtual project teams’, International Journal of Project Management, 27 (5), pp.456-463. DOI: 10.1016/j.ijproman.2008.05.012 [Attached as “reading material 2”]
3. Brett, J., Behfar, K. & Kern, M. (2006) ‘Managing multicultural teams’, Harvard Business Review, 84 (11), pp.84-91, Business Source Premier [Attached as “reading material 4”]
Note: I need some referencing from the attached reading materials, I will add only one today and the other two tomorrow.

Claudia Stenzel
Marketing Manager, IBM Global Technology Services
Improvements in transportation and communication technology and a reduction in economic
and political barriers are amongst the factors that are increasing globalisation. One consequence
of globalisation is that it is encouraging the use of multinational teams. Coupled with the
changing nature of work and continuous improvement in collaborative software, virtual
working in multinational teams is growing in popularity as a cost-e?ective way of operating.
The study of the human resource implications of this new and virtually borderless frontier of
collaborative working is lagging behind the rapidly advancing technology.
This paper distils theory with recent research ®ndings in virtual teaming. This is the term
used to describe project teams working across time and space using electronic media. The
authors contend that the key competencies in successful virtual teaming can be clustered under
the headings of technology, leadership and culture. The paper explores the literature under
these headings, focusing on culture and adding ®ndings from research projects undertaken
independently by the authors with ABB and IBM.1
Introduction ± virtual teaming
Virtual teams are usually characterised by geographically dispersed members
working on a speci®c project using computer-supported collaborative software
to facilitate interaction. The often ad hoc team members are likely to
represent di?erent specialist functions and to have multiple reporting lines.
Uni®ed by the project, they typically use telephone and video conferences, as
well as email and other more sophisticated groupware technologies to communicate.
As Lipnack and Stamps (1997) elegantly describe it, “Virtual teams
work across time and space as well as organizational and cultural boundaries
with links strengthened by webs of communication technologies”. Such is the
1 In 2001 and 2002 Symons studied virtual teaming with 89 middle ranking ABB executives
from 29 di?erent countries. Leaders were emergent. Stenzel’s research in 2004 was focused on
IBM in Europe where the virtual team members were for Central and Eastern Europe, and the
appointed team leaders were mostly from Western Europe.
1±17
John Symons and Claudia Stenzel
2 Journal of General Management Vol. 32 No. 3 Spring 2007
changing nature of work that human resource activity is becoming increasingly
time independent and the place of work is no longer ®xed. The transition
to the mobile and time-independent workplace has advanced rapidly. The
implications have often been addressed retrospectively. Virtual working
inevitably impacts on factors such as leadership and individual competences,
trust, work/life balance, decision-making, communication, job design, training
and development, and productivity.
Virtual teamwork is potentially dicult because it requires collaboration,
co-operation, co-ordination and commitment from team members who are
working physically apart from each other most of the time. As Zigurs (2003)
describes the problem, the virtual environment is where “Trust is dicult to
build, in¯uence is dicult to express, self-leadership is required and communication
is often ambiguous.” Not surprisingly, understanding how to lead
a virtual team is becoming a fundamental competence for managers in global
organisations (Duarte and Tennant Snyder, 2000; Symons, 2002a). Although
as Symons (2002a) maintains, there is no new paradigm of virtual leadership;
but it is a new “situation”.
Virtual teaming has attractive potential bene®ts. As companies expand
globally, multinational virtual teams promise improved resource utilisation
that is achieved through more ¯exibility, with human resource availability
regardless of physical location. Advantages are seen in terms of competitive
advantage and operating cost reduction (Weick and Van Orden, 1990;
Jarvenpaa and Leidner, 1999). The performance case is mixed. The concept
of the `working day’ is rapidly becoming meaningless and there are signi®cant
costs attached to technology usage and failures. Other potential downsides
exist. They include: low individual commitment, role overload, role ambiguity,
absenteeism, lack of synergy amongst team members, con¯icts due to dual
or multiple reporting lines, di?erent holidays and working hours, communications
breakdowns due to unreliable technology and cultural variances
(O’Hara-Devereaux and Johansen, 1994; Odenwald, 1996; Lipnack and
Stamps, 1997; Jarvaenpaa and Leidner, 1999; Duarte and Tennant Snyder,
2000).
In the predominantly American studies on virtual teams, only a few authors
such as O’Hara-Devereaux and Johansen, Odenwald and Duarte and Tennant
Snyder, op. cit., give special attention to the fact that members of multinational
virtual teams have to deal with cross-cultural dispersion, or cultural variability
within domestic teams. Dysfunctional cross-cultural con¯icts amplify the
inherent risks of failure for virtual teams. It is therefore, important for leaders
to understand why and where cross-cultural con¯ict arises and what impact
that may have on teamwork. Through understanding the impact of culture on
team climate, performance can be improved. This paper focuses on culture to
try and understand why people may or may not work successfully together in a
team, rather than on the e?ect on team climate. From the emerging literature
and research on virtual teaming it is possible to cluster the key issues into two
superordinate categories, i.e. leadership and culture, and communication and
technology.
One can conceptualise these categories in di?erent ways. Technology in the
form of computer-mediation is an enabler. It is necessary to enable the
Virtually borderless: an examination of culture in virtual teaming
Journal of General Management Vol. 32 No. 3 Spring 2007 3
communication between team members; but, as long as the technology works
e?ectively, and the users know what, when and how to use it e?ectively, the
issues of fundamental importance lie in Human Resource Management
(HRM). As Lipnack and Stamps (1997) contend, what it takes to make virtual
teams succeed is 10% technology and 90% people. In multinational companies
the cultural interaction of team members is a critical component of HRM.
Aim and structure of the paper
The aim of this paper is to examine culture in virtual teaming. In so doing, we
cannot logically ignore technology, leadership and communication, for each
will impact on the coherence of our examination of culture. We begin with
technology as the enabler of leadership and culture in virtual teaming. Critical
to the success of virtual teaming are the socio-emotional and task leadership
aspects of communication, which link closely to leadership. In this paper we
will embrace communication within the discussion of leadership. A previous
paper ± Symons (2002a) ± focuses speci®cally on leadership in virtual teams.
Technology
Working in virtual teams has been made possible through the availability of
suitable electronic media. Technology is important as the enabler of virtual
teaming and the virtual team needs to make choices regarding the ecacy of
di?erent media according to the contextual requirements. In relation to our
focus on leadership and culture, it is important to recognise that not everywhere
in the world enjoys the same levels of connectivity, nor is technology
used in the same manner. Thus, communications with a team member in say,
East Africa, which su?ers from poor telecoms, may prove frustrating and
counterproductive. Duarte and Tennant Snyder (2000) suggest that groupware
technology is of little use in resolving interpersonal con¯ict ± especially
when the issues that lead to con¯ict are highly emotional or ambiguous; nor is
it useful when the team is newly formed and trust is not yet built.
On the other hand, technology can provide a certain structure that
facilitates results-oriented team spirit and helps to reduce the high levels of
uncertainty inherent in the virtual environment. Jarvenpaa and Leidner
(1999) contend that electronic media are making cultural di?erences less
noticeable. If true, this is an advantage at the formative stage of a virtual team’s
development because the focus is on perceived similarities amongst team
members, rather than on their di?erences. Exploring similarities and di?erences
is a good foundation for relationship building. However, the disadvantage
is that over time, di?erences may become more obvious and may have a
negative impact. Fragile relationships can be easily destroyed if team members
and leaders do not recognise the cultural diversity. Zigurs (2003) postulates
the establishment of a “distant presence” through the e?ective use of technology
by stating that “leaders need to learn how to use the vividness and
interactivity of media to make their presence felt in a positive way and to
John Symons and Claudia Stenzel
4 Journal of General Management Vol. 32 No. 3 Spring 2007
exercise appropriate in¯uence to move the team forward.” She also reminds
her readers that people from most cultures prefer familiar practices and do not
adopt new technologies easily. She stresses, as do O’Hara-Devereaux and
Johansen (1994), the importance of providing support for those using the
technology.
Leadership and communication
Throughout history people have tried to ®nd out what makes e?ective leaders.
The search for a universal explanation for what constitutes a good leader
continues. Historically, leadership has been de®ned in arti®cial, theoretical
constructs such as personality traits, behaviour and style, contingency, and
power and in¯uence theories. More recent de®nitions focus on leadership
associated with change management, vision-building or empowerment. In
virtual teaming we are concerned with leadership as a results-oriented process,
rather than leadership as a position. The theory judged to be appropriate for
virtual teaming is increasingly seen as `emergent’ (Symons, 2002a; Yoo and
Alavi, 2003). According to Yoo and Alavi, in a study of 63 US government
agency executives participating in an executive development programme,
emergent leaders in virtual teaming have three roles: initiator, scheduler and
integrator. Without the face-to-face social exchanges and visual clues of
traditional leadership, the emergent leader has to rely more on in¯uence and
facilitation skills. In practice however, Symons (2003) in a study of 89 middle
ranking executives from 29 di?erent countries working for a multinational
company showed that whilst emergent leadership characterised early experiences
of virtual teaming, this was not maintained. Over time, leadership
became less consensual and the senior, dominant or charismatic person
became more signi®cant.
House et al. (2002) examined the inter-relationships between societal
culture, organisational culture and practices as well as organisational leadership.
They discovered that de®nitions and perceptions of leadership vary
considerably from culture to culture. Leadership capabilities that are generally
valued as contributing to outstanding leadership are: dynamism, decisiveness
and honesty, as well as the capacity to motivate and negotiate with others, and
a focus on performance. Generally attributed negative qualities include: being
autocratic, egocentric and irritable. (We see no reason to challenge the validity
of these characteristics with regard to leadership in virtual teaming although it
would be interesting to investigate this further through empirical research).
Ambition, formality, risk-taking and self-e?acement are valued in some
cultures but not in others. Shared leadership, a quality many postulate to be
crucial for virtual teams (Lipnack and Stamps 1997; Duarte and Tennant
Snyder, 2000; Symons, 2002a), may only have relevance in cultures with an
orientation towards equality and ¯exibility. Additionally, attributes such as
communication skills, which are considered to be very important for virtual
team leaders, vary greatly across cultures. Cultural variations are likely to drive
behaviours and those working in, or leading, multinational virtual teams need
to see and understand the phenomena that surround them in order to
understand, change or in¯uence the team’s climate.
Virtually borderless: an examination of culture in virtual teaming
Journal of General Management Vol. 32 No. 3 Spring 2007 5
Team leaders that have, for example, recognised that members of their
teams demonstrate high levels of uncertainty avoidance2 may want to be
sensitive to their feelings of insecurity, but may not know how to translate that
into action. This could be either because they do not understand the observed
phenomena or because they do not know how to respond. Just as it is often
impossible to identify the root cause of cultural dissonance, so too is it dicult
to ®nd the appropriate managerial behaviour to correct the situation. A
synopsis of the literature, supported by the authors’ research, indicates that
the start of project is critical and that virtual team leaders need to exhibit
certain skills to:
Select team members appropriate to achieving the task.
Choose the appropriate computer-mediated technology.
Get a team started.
Define the team’s purpose, vision and modus operandi.
Gain commitment.
Determine outputs and measures of success.
Develop a rhythm of communication.
Human communication is an important aspect of virtual teaming and there
is broad consensus in the literature of its signi®cance (e.g. O’Hara-Devereaux
and Johansen, 1994; Odenwald, 1996; Lipnack and Stamps, 1997; Jarvaenpaa
and Leidner, 1999; Duarte and Tennant Snyder, 2000; Symons, 2002a).
Communication builds trust (Jarvaenpaa and Leidner, 1999) and leads to
mutual cultural respect (Duarte and Snyder, 2000). Through communication,
people get a better sense of one another and understand each others’ priorities.
Whilst the competences and challenges of virtual group working have started
to receive attention from (primarily US) researchers, little has been said about
how virtual team leaders can e?ectively encourage positive cross-cultural
behaviour and prevent con¯ict that will damage team and task. It is unlikely
that a virtual team leader can fully meet the expectations of all members of a
multinational virtual team. However, if one agrees that an important “function
of leadership is the creation and management of culture” (Schein, 1992),
then it is a virtual team leader’s signi®cant challenge to build and maintain a
trust-based virtual culture. In theory, this can be done by valuing diversity;
channelling the di?erent expectations and culturally-determined behaviours
of the team members into rich outputs. This requires leadership in the form of
facilitating the adaptation of cultural orientations that create advantage into
the team culture.
2 In a study of virtual team members in IBM Central and Eastern Europe, Stenzel’s (2004)
research argued that the national cultures in central and eastern Europe do not ®t well with the
culture of a virtual team. Team members showed relatively high levels of uncertainty avoidance
with a preference for high context communications. There was a general dislike of shared
decision-making and shared leadership. Stenzel made the link with the culturally embedded,
centralised and controlled Communist work systems and with the countries’ ongoing transition
towards Western democracy and a free-market economy.
John Symons and Claudia Stenzel
6 Journal of General Management Vol. 32 No. 3 Spring 2007
Trust in virtual teams
Captured by Duarte and Tennant Snyder (2000), there is general agreement
that face-to-face relationships have no equal and that virtual teams are most
vulnerable to dysfunctional con¯ict when team members are unfamiliar with
one another. In a face-to-face environment it is easier to build and sustain
relationships and assess team members’ motivation and trustworthiness.
Almost all the literature on virtual teaming stresses the importance of trust
as the foundation for performance in a virtual environment (O’Hara-
Devereaux and Johansen, 1994; Odenwald, 1996; Lipnack and Stamps,
1997; Jarvaenpaa and Leidner, 1999; Duarte and Tennant Snyder, 2000). In
recent research, Symons (2003) showed that trust was viewed as the single
most critical factor in virtual teaming. Developing trusting relationships in
virtual teams is much more dicult than in face-to-face teams because the
physical presence is missing. In co-located teams, physically observed actions
form the basis for most leadership practices such as feedback, encouragement,
rewards and motivation (Zigurs, 2003). Duarte and Tennant Snyder (2000)
identify three building blocks that must be present to create trust in virtual
teams:
Performance and competence, which refers to the confidence in the skills
of a person or a group.
Integrity, which means trust on the basis of credibility and honesty
Relationship, particularly the concern for the wellbeing of others.
Zigurs emphasises that initial impressions are formed quickly and they
persist even in the face of new evidence, making the development of trust
dicult for team members and leaders that may never meet in person.
Hence, O’Hara-Devereaux and Johansen (1994), as well as Duarte and
Tennant Snyder (2000) suggest that it is critical for virtual team leaders to
make personal meetings possible at least at the beginning of the team’s
existence. An alternative view is taken by Jarvenpaa and Leidner (1999).
They argue that a face-to-face environment is not necessary, even at the
embryonic stage of a virtual team, if team leaders encourage team
members to focus intensively, openly and thoughtfully on establishing
links across boundaries and on building strong networks. Handy (1995)
argues that trust “needs (physical) touch”, which is almost eliminated in
virtual teams.
Whether teams meet face-to-face or not, we side with Duarte and
Tennant Snyder (2000) who suggest that team leaders acknowledge at a
very early stage of the team’s life that building trust is dicult, and that it
requires everyone’s commitment and e?ort. But we have to recognise that
trust is fragile and dicult to maintain. Building it takes time and
commitment; it can be destroyed irrevocably in a careless moment. Walker
et al. (2002) recommend that team leaders consider activities that support
the establishment of trust indirectly, such as providing individual and
group feedback and placing weight on team contribution and individual
performance. Appropriate remuneration measures may contribute to developing
group-working.
Virtually borderless: an examination of culture in virtual teaming
Journal of General Management Vol. 32 No. 3 Spring 2007 7
Culture
Dimensions of cultural orientations
Culture is one of the most popular topics in international management
research. It has found its way into most business school programmes and it is
part of most management consultant activities. However, culture remains a
complex phenomenon. One of the most in¯uential authorities in the ®eld of
cross-cultural research is Geert Hofstede. He compares culture to an iceberg
where a proportion is hidden. The visible part of a nation’s culture consists of
observable practices such as behaviours, symbols, rituals, heroes and language
patterns. The below-the-water-line, hidden, bedrock of culture is made up of
mostly intangible elements such as emotions, beliefs and values (Hofstede,
1980). He stresses (Hofstede, 1991) the cognitive nature of culture ± the
notion that culture is our `mental software’: “. . . the collective programming
of the mind that distinguishes members of one human group from another”.
However, unlike computer software, culture operates on both a conscious
and an unconscious level; it is built up and modi®ed over time by the
experiences of an individual or a group and by their social environment. A
similar approach to the examination of cultural variances is that of Trompenaars
and Hampden-Turner (1997). They de®ne culture as “the way in which
a group of people solve problems and reconcile dilemmas.” Like Hofstede,
they focus on national cultural di?erences and classify them along a series of
categories. Some of these cultural categories evolved from a framework
developed by Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck (1961) for analysing di?erences
among cultures. A similar approach was taken by Hall (1966; 1981), whose
model of cultural di?erences focuses primarily on cross-cultural communication,
including his theory on the perception and use of space (proxemics)
and his concept of the culturally determined degree of implicit information in
communication. Bennett (1993) grounds his cultural concept upon di?erences
in communication.
Despite the fact that they use di?erent methods for gathering data, all the
researchers mentioned above follow a nomothetic rather than ideographic
approach (Easterby-Smith and Malina (1999), i.e. they try to describe and
compare prevailing manifestations of culture by breaking them down to a
small number of universally applicable categories ± so-called cultural dimensions.
To analyse and compare the culture of nations or societies they place
them along those cultural dimensions, which are mostly de®ned by opposite
poles that represent the extreme ends of the same continuum. The following
table gives an example of cultural dimension models developed by prominent
cross-cultural researchers and outlines the di?erences and similarities of their
approaches.
Cultural dimensions can be useful parameters for describing culture though
as Bennett (1973) reminds us, nearly all beliefs are represented in all cultures at
all times, but each di?erent culture has a preference for some beliefs over
others. Recent studies (Hansen, 2000; Bolten, 2001; Drechsel et al., 2000)
consider the reduction to abstract cultural generalisations ± even if derived
from large-group research ± as dangerous because they are too easily acceptJohn
Symons and Claudia Stenzel
8 Journal of General Management Vol. 32 No. 3 Spring 2007
able. They tend to lead to stereotypes and to being applied to individuals. Even
Hofstede (1991) warns that “statements about cultures are not statements
about individuals” and Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner (1997), who
focus more on the active role of individuals within a culture than Hofstede
(1980, 1991), stress the importance of understanding the individual in
addition to using generalisations on a country level. Another heavily criticised
shortcoming of the cultural dimensions approach is the fact that it only
describes cultural manifestations and di?erences instead of explaining them.
As a consequence, many cross-cultural training programmes, mostly based on
adaptive learning through stages (Bennett, 1997; O’Hara-Devereaux and
Johansen, 1994; Duarte and Tennant Snyder, 2000; Schmitz, 2003) help
managers to recognise cultural variances.
However, due to lack of explanations necessary for understanding culturally-
determined di?erences in global managers’ attitudes towards a range of
business and management issues, they are not supporting the creation of
cultural knowledge (Bolten, 2001; Hansen, 2000). The most recent crosscultural
literature (especially the literature conducted by researchers focusing
Hofstede Trompenaars and
Hampden-Turner
Kluckhohn and
Strodtbeck
Hall Bennett
power distance
uncertainty avoidance
long-term vs.
short-term
individualism vs.
collectivism
masculinity vs.
femininity
inner direction vs.
outer direction
sequential time vs.
synchronic time
neutrality vs.
a?ectivity
speci®c vs. di?use
individualism vs.
communitarianism
universalism vs.
pluralism
achieved status vs.
ascribed status
subjugated to the
environment vs.
in harmony with it vs.
dominating it
past vs. present vs.
future
being vs. doing
private space vs.
public space
individualism vs.
collaterality vs.
linearity
inherently good vs.
evil vs. mix of both
monochronic time vs.
polychronic time
high context vs. low
context
communication
intimate space vs.
social space vs. public
space
digital languages vs.
analogic languages
linear discussions vs.
circular discussions
direct confrontation
vs. indirect
confrontation
Figure 1: Examples of cultural dimensions de®ned by cross-cultural researchers
Virtually borderless: an examination of culture in virtual teaming
Journal of General Management Vol. 32 No. 3 Spring 2007 9
on international business culture), stresses the importance of cultural due
diligence. It suggests an ideographic approach in cross-cultural research based
for example on a detailed description and explanation of cultural styles that
include historic, political, economic, social, demographic, religious and legal
aspects; as well as mentality, communication and working styles (Easterby-
Smith and Malina, 1999; Ammon, 2001; Bolten, 2001; Garrison, 2001).
Drechsel et al. (2000) try to combine the di?erent approaches in their
“cultural web” model. Starting from the notion that national as well as
organisational cultures are not static but permanently changing, they focus
less on the single cultural dimensions, which can vary according to the level
(national, organisational or functional level) and more on the relationships
between the cultural dimension ± the cultural web. The cultural styles as well
as the cultural web approach allow for more profound as well as more speci®c
comparison between cultures. Defenders of the cultural dimensions model,
however, argue that despite its tendency towards oversimpli®cation, the
dimensions approach provides a useful framework for navigating through
foreign cultures, especially if one has to deal with people from more than one
culture. The discussion of the di?erent approaches taken by cross-cultural
researchers has shown that all existing models have advantages and disadvantages
and that their usefulness depends heavily on the context in which
they are applied.
Organisational culture
When explaining what impact “deeply rooted” national cultures have on
organisational culture, Hofstede (1991) starts from the notion that the two are
completely di?erent kinds of cultural concepts. Bennett (1993) takes a similar
approach by de®ning two di?erent types of culture: the subjective value-based
culture, the psychological features that make up a group of people and the
objective culture based on behaviour patterns that have become “routinised”.
Hofstede argues that while di?erent values are primarily the origin of cultural
variances at national level, cultural di?erences at organisational level emanate
from the employees’ shared perceptions of practices at the workplace. In other
words, observable practices substantially in¯uence the behaviour of employees,
while organisational values have little impact on the belief systems of
employees.
Mintu (1992) alludes to the con¯ict Hofstede provokes, with the notion
that practices lie at the very heart of organisational culture and not shared
values like most other, mainly American, authors suggest. Writers such as
Peters and Waterman (1982) present IBM as an excellent example of a
powerful corporate culture based on shared values. Ironically, Hofstede’s
survey on IBM shows value di?erences according to the employees’ nationality,
age and education but generates no information on IBM’s organisational
culture. Hofstede’s (1991) explanation for this anomaly is that organisational
shared values always have to be introduced “top down” in order to ensure that
corporate culture is dynamic enough to ®t changing marketplace conditions.
(Morgan 1986; Schein 1992). Hence, organisational culture, if mainly based
John Symons and Claudia Stenzel
10 Journal of General Management Vol. 32 No. 3 Spring 2007
on values, is the outcome of the shared values of CEOs, managers or founders
of an organisation, and not of the employees.3
Following Hofstede’s theory, Sims and Lorenzi (1992) de®ne organisational
culture as consensual schema, which means that employees have
developed a certain “similarity in the way they cognitively process and
evaluate information”. The approach of O’Neill et al. (1997) towards organisational
culture goes in the same direction, de®ning culture as: “Consensual
schema shared among employees in an organisation, resulting in and from a
pattern of basic assumptions and norms enhancing individual and organisational
stability, manifested in shared meanings, communicated by stories,
myths and practices, and resulting in certain behaviour patterns which are
unique to the organisation.”
Consensual schema imply that behavioural variability of employees can be
reduced if the organisational culture is deep enough, no matter how widely
geographically dispersed the employees (O’Neill et al., 1997.) However, one
can doubt whether organisational con¯ict at corporation, business unit,
department or team level can be successfully reduced ± if this is required at