Culture is the collective programming of the mind that distinguishes the members of one group or category of people from others. The manifestation of culture is well described by the terms: symbols, heroes, rituals and values (Hofstede, Cultures and Organizations)

Culture is learned, not innate and is derived from the environment a person lives in. Following this reasoning, different people living in different countries have a different culture. Hofstede, a professor of anthropology at Maastricht University, in the Netherlands, has classified cultural differences along 5 dimensions (power distance, individualism, masculinity, uncertainty avoidance, long-term orientation). 

Culture is not specific of countries and an organization has a culture through the shared set of norms and values of its employees (Schein Organizational Culture and Leadership) .  Schein divides an organizational culture in three levels: underlying assumptions, espoused beliefs and values, and artifacts.

To summarize, individuals in different countries have cultural differences that have been classified along 5 dimensions. This does not mean that each individual in a specific country fits perfectly the classification, but we would expect a tendency toward the common characteristics of his/her culture. People from the same culture have been exposed to the same environment and therefore, are able to understand each other better.  Additionally, to the country cultural differences, we have added the concept of organizational culture. Individuals in a certain company share a set of values, norms, beliefs and assumptions. These individuals may experience cultural mismatches when in contact with persons from another company, even when they both come from the same country.

Working in a multicultural team presents several challenges.  According to Brett Jeannethe (Negotiating Globally) reason for the conflicts comes from the difficulty of the tasks (task conflict), from the need to negotiate on how to do the task (procedural conflict) and from how task and procedural conflicts often morph into interpersonal conflicts. However, when these issues are managed properly, according to Brett Jeannethe, multicultural teams are able to achieve better performance, especially in tasks that involve making decisions under conditions of uncertainty.