On the rocky road to strong global culture

We have studied organizational culture in global companies for 12 years, and we have found that few companies succeed at building an organizational culture that is globally integrated, yet flexible enough to accommodate local variations. One barrier is a headquarters-centric mindset: Companies often approach the process of developing a global culture as a one-way process dominated by corporate headquarters, exemplified by common terms such as cultural transfer and culture dissemination. A second often-overlooked barrier is that thinking about global culture has been too heavily influenced by a model that conceptualizes global culture along a linear continuum ranging from weak to strong culture. Such an approach is too simplistic to capture complex cultural realities in MNCs. Creating a global corporate culture requires breaking away from a headquarters-centric mindset, drawing upon cultural capabilities that exist across the global operations and incorporating diverse cultural values and practices

Employee commitment in MNCs: impacts of organizational culture, HRM and top management orientations

This paper examines the impact of organizational culture and HRM system on employee commitment of core employees in multinational companies (MNCs). In addition, it identifies two top management team orientations global orientation and geocentric orientation that are seen as contributing uniquely to employee commitment in international firms. We found strong overall support for the model. The results also suggest that High Performance Work Practices have a positive impact on commitment regardless of national origin of the MNC

Employee commitment in MNCs: impacts of organizational culture, HRM and top management orientations

This article tests a model of organizational commitment in multinational corporations (MNCs). According to the model, organizational culture and human resource management (HRM) affect employee commitment directly as well as indirectly through top management team orientations. Szpecifically, we examined the effect of top management team global orientation and geocentric orientation, which are seen as contributing uniquely to employee commitment in MNCs. The model was tested on a sample of 1664 core employees working in 39 affiliates of 10 MNCs. We found strong overall support for the model. In particular, organizational culture characterized by high adaptability and a HRM system characterized by high performance work practices were found to have a significant and direct effect on employee commitment. In addition, we found that the effect of these traditional elements of the human organization is partially mediated through top management orientations, specific to international firms. The validity and generalizability of these results are reinforced by the control of a set of demographic variables as well as nationality of parent company

Does it really matter if Japanese MNCs think globally?

This paper explores the empirical relationships between the global orientation of the top management team, geocentrism of the staffing and promotion system, and boundary spanning structures and processes with the individual outcome variables of employee commitment to, and excitement about, their job and organization in ten units of two highly diversified high-technology Japanese multinational corporations. The results from the study show that employee perceptions of the top management team’s global orientation, geocentrism, and boundary spanning structures and processes influence individual attitudes of employees in Japanese MNCs. The implications of these results for further research and managerial practice are discussed

Designing a relevant cross-cultural management course: a view through the lens of scientific mindfulness

Literature review and interviews with CCM instructors and former course participants who are now expatriates indicate that CCM courses generally lack relevance. To address this problem, we suggest a new type of CCM course designed through the lens of scientific mindfulness, a holistic, cross-disciplinary, contextual, and reflexive approach to scholarship and practice with the intent to contribute to the betterment of society. First, regarding the course content, a scientifically mindful course is based on a broad and phenomenon-based definition of CCM recognizing that today’s corporations are not purely economic, but also social and political actors with a responsibility for global sustainability. Thus, this type of course highlights how cross-cultural competencies are critical for sustainable and responsible management. Second, this type of course makes extensive use of skill-building methods, such as service learning experiences. Third, such a course is evaluated at the levels of both student performance and course effectiveness in delivering outcomes that have the potential to contribute to society