The Challenge of Global Mindset Development for Managers: Towards a New Framework for Empirical Tool Building

The forces of market, government, cost and competition are impacting organisations to rethink their managerial 'mindset' orientations. Understanding and reformulating the global economic and managerial rules have become one of the most relevant managerial responsibilities in organisations today. Globalisation requires managers not only to consider strategic and organisational issues, but also to reorient their values, goals and belief systems. The ideology of economic reform associated with globalisation, can only be of learning value if the alignment of the national, organisational and individual mind frames is ensured.This paper provides a generic framework of the logic of globalisation driving the alignment of the national, organisation and individual level mind frames. A conceptual model explaining the symbiotic macro (national), meso (organisational) and micro (individual) level inter-relationships is presented and supported by the underpinnings of various postulated hypotheses. The theoretical model integrates the key variables of a global managerial mindset and establishes a framework for empirical testing across diverse cultures and contexts

Global managerial skill-sets, management development, and the role of HR: An exploratory qualitative study with North American and Indian managers

Ever since Porter’s (1986) seminal study, much research has focused on the key factors which assure competitiveness in increasingly global marketplaces, including both business and human resource management (HRM) strategies. With respect to the latter, the importance of management development in developing managers with global skills-sets has been a persistent theme in the literature on competitive strategy and HRM over the last decade. This paper extends such research by employing a qualitative methodology to explore the need for and identify these global skills-sets from the perspectives of fifty-six senior executives from multinational organizations in North America and India. The role of human resource (HR) departments in developing the identified skill-sets in both contexts is discussed by identifying its role in management development. The paper also presents the implications for HR professionals and practitioners and provides suggestions for future research

Antecedents of a global mindset: A mixed method analysis of Indian, Chinese and Japanese managers

There is a growing literature pointing to the importance of global organizations having managers with global mindsets. However, some theoretical issues and contradictory research findings require attention, especially in the case of non-Western contexts. The aim of this article is to examine the extent to which current understandings about the antecedents of global mindsets apply to Indian, Chinese and Japanese organizations. Employing a quantitatively driven mixed method approach, survey data from 504 managers, and interviews with 36 executives and managers is analyzed. The findings suggest convergence in the three Asian contexts that has theoretical and practical implications

Perceived employability and career readiness among STEM students: does gender matter?

Gender equity is an area of concern within STEM, where women are underrepresented in education and career roles. Increasing the representation of women in STEM and removing negative gender stereotypes are necessary actions, both of which can be fostered during formal education through employability initiatives and in the workplace. This study focused on the university setting and explores the perceived employability beliefs of students in STEM (including medicine), particularly their career identity and commitment, learning mindset, awareness of career and how their learning relates to their future career. The 12,708 student responses to an online questionnaire illustrate significant gendered differences in employability beliefs. Female students in STEM have significantly higher confidence in career identity and commitment, and relevance of learning compared to males, although they feel less confident in their reconsideration of career commitment and occupational mobility. In comparison to non-STEM students, women in STEM report higher confidence in career identity and commitment, reconsideration of career commitment, willingness and ability to learn, relevance of learning, career exploration and awareness and occupational mobility. Employability interventions are needed within the STEM educational context to promote long-term equal opportunities for all genders in the workplace

A neo-institutional perspective on ethical decision-making

Drawing on neo-institutional theory, this study aims to discern the poorly understood ethical challenges confronted by senior executives in Indian multinational corporations and identify the strategies that they utilize to overcome them. We conducted in-depth interviews with 40 senior executives in Indian multinational corporations to illustrate these challenges and strategies. By embedding our research in contextually relevant characteristics that embody the Indian environment, we identify several institutional- and managerial-level challenges faced by executives. The institutional-level challenges are interpreted as regulative, normative and cognitive shortcomings. We recommend a concerted effort at the institutional and managerial levels by identifying relevant strategies for ethical decision-making. Moreover, we proffer a multi-level model of ethical decision-making and discuss our theoretical contributions and practical implications

Religion-based decision making in Indian multinationals: A multi-faith study of ethical virtues and mindsets

The convergence of India’s rich cultural and religious heritage with its rapidly transforming economy provides a unique opportunity to understand how senior executives navigate the demands of the business environment within the context of their religious convictions. Forty senior executives with varying religious backgrounds and global responsibilities within Indian multinational corporations participated in this study. Drawing from virtue ethics theory and using systematic content analysis, several themes emerged for ethical virtues (empathy, sympathy, humanity, justice, fairness, temperance, integrity, transparency, governance, conscientiousness, transcendence, wisdom, moral fortitude and determination). The analysis illustrates how these deeply seated ethical virtues helped to form and refine these executives’ ethical mindsets via guiding principles such as an ethical culture, environment, molding, education, commitment and leadership. In turn, these ethical mindsets influenced the executives’ ethical decision-making processes. We find that these executives’ ethical virtues and mindsets are inspired by their religious backgrounds. In summary, a very complex mental tug-of-war appears to take place as these executives rationalize and negotiate unethical circumstances while being cognizant of personal religious beliefs. We contend that in a pluralistic multi-faith society such as India, it is critical for corporations to align the virtues of its senior executives with those of the corporation so that virtues are applied consistently when dealing with various stakeholders. The findings present several theoretical and practical implications, which are discussed

Macro level drivers of globalization in Indian and Chinese service organizations: an empirical study

Cross-border trade across disappearing geographic boundaries has been the most important factor that has led to the intensification of economic globalization in the past two decades. Major political, legal and economic reform measures at the national level have been the driving force for economic globalization across developed and developing countries across the globe. In the services industry, generally, reforms at the national level include government controlled deregulation of industries, foreign investment allowances and licencing. These government led reforms have been pivotal towards the global resurgence in the demand and provision of services across the global marketplace. It is contended in this paper that there are three other forces, besides 'government' enablers that are necessitating these changes at the national level. These forces are 'market', 'cost', and competition. Collectively, these four forces shape globalization. The impact and importance of these forces was examined with data that were obtained from a study with indigenous managers employed in the service industry in China (n = 210) and India (n = 239). Employing a pluralist (quantitative and qualitative procedures) design, the data reveal market forces were of the most overall importance in both nations. However, for different service sectors, the impact and intenstity of the principal force varied. Experimental evidence obtained from indigenous service industy managers in India and China through qualitative focus groups and one-on-one interviews are utilized to explain and justify the quantitative rankings in the discussion section. Further, the implications of the findings for global business are elucidated in the concluding section

Career development, job satisfaction, and career commitment: evidence from the Singaporean hospitality industry

Changing aspirations of contemporary employees is compelling employers to facilitate corporate frameworks for enhancing employee retention rates. One scheme to reduce attrition is fostering greater career satisfaction and career commitment through enlightened career path planning. This study reports findings from the analysis of data provided by 505 employees of a leading Singaporean hotel to reveal career path planning and career management, substantial predictors of career development, which was significantly related to career satisfaction and career commitment. It was also found that women and men held similar perspectives for all the assessments, but older employees reported significantly less importance for career planning and career development. Insights for strengthening organization- employee linkages are presented

The impact of organisational reform measures on managerial global mindset intensity: empirical evidence from Indian and Chinese service industry managers

The cognitive orientations of managers in processing fast moving global knowledge structures have become critical as corporations around the world make sense of the upheavals of globalisation. As Chinese and Indian firms make unprecedented marks in the global arena, significant reforms and mindset reorientations are emerging as areas of scholarly attention. The capability of intensification of global mindset in terms of synthesising multiple organisational imperatives, structural and technological diversities and entrepreneurial cultures are being impacted by national, organisational and managerial level reforms in these two countries. The study presented in this paper compares some of the identified determinants of global mindsets of managers in the service sector in India and China. Based on a study of 239 Indian and 210 Chinese managers, the results suggest that there is an increasing level of leveraging organisational level reforms evident in both countries as they seek to extend their global visibility and advantage