A Conceptual Framework for Instilling a Global Mindset in Business Students

ABSTRACT

This article proposes a conceptual framework for instilling and fostering a global mindset among students of business in general and international business in particular. Students learning to become global managers must first have an open mindset and be aware of changes in themselves. When managers encounter problems at a global firm, they need to consider the unique situations that cause problems and create appropriate solutions. Different settings or environments require different approaches, reflecting the complexity of heterogeneity and indeterminacy in decision-making. We suggest pedagogical methods for teaching international business by instilling a global mindset in business students.     

Will the new competitive landscape cause your firm's decline? It depends on your mindset

A view of the new competitive landscape shows globalization, rapid technological change, and hypercompetition as conduits leading to either organizational decline or organizational growth. In this article we explain how managers can use four mindsets to convert potential threats posed by these environmental challenges into pathways of prosperity, instead of pathways of decline. A global mindset, or the ability to view the world using a broad perspective, converts globalization threats into growth opportunities by thinking beyond geographic boundaries, valuing integration across borders, and appreciating regional and cultural diversity. An innovation mindset, meaning a mental framework that fosters development and implementation of new ideas, transforms rapid technological change threats into opportunities by valuing constant generation of new ideas and business models, realizing sources of new ideas, and stressing next practices rather than best practices. A virtual mindset, or the ability of managers to hand over their firms’ activities to external providers, turns hypercompetition into prospects for growth by facilitating flexibility and responsiveness. Finally, a collaboration mindset, meaning a willingness to engage in business partnerships, converts all three challenges into opportunities by allowing firms to form successful partnerships that can lead to synergy by combining business complementarities.     

Do International Cocurricular Activities Have an Impact on Cultivating a Global Mindset in Business School Students?

ABSTRACT

In today’s integrated global economy, business executives of multinational corporations are required to have a flexible global mindset in order to cope with the driving forces of globalization. Thus, the global market forces stress the importance for business schools to graduate students with skill sets pertinent to functioning competitively in the ever-changing business environment. In this article, we conducted a survey of 165 students in the Albers School of Business and Economics at Seattle University to examine whether international cocurricular activities help achieve the goal of cultivating a global mindset in students. The results suggest that international cocurricular activities enhance students’ global mindset. Short-term study tours and international internships do have a significant impact on students’ global mindset as other long-term cocurricular activities, which may cost more time and money. We recommend that short-term study tours be used as an alternative cost-effective way to engaging business students in the internationalization of the business curriculum at their institutions.     

Creating a global mindset

Why are some companies highly successful in spotting and exploiting global opportunities, while others mismanage them or miss them entirely? The answer could lie in the company's mindset, a topical subject currently doing the rounds at numerous executive education seminars. The term corporate mindset refers to how the company sees the world and how this affects its actions. For companies operating on a global scale, developing a global corporate mindset presents a formidable managerial challenge. The corporate mindset determines to what extent management encourages and values cultural diversity, while simultaneously maintaining a certain degree of strategic cohesion. Developing a global corporate mindset and a group of global managers as its main flag bearers has become a key prerequisite for successfully competing and growing in worldwide markets. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Human Resource Management in a Compartmentalized World: Whither Moral Agency?

This article examines the potential for moral agency in human resource management practice. It draws on an ethnographic study of human resource managers in a global organization to provide a theorized account of situated moral agency. This account suggests that within contemporary organizations, institutional structures??particularly the structures of Anglo-American market capitalism??threaten and constrain the capacity of HR managers to exercise moral agency and hence engage in ethical behaviour. The contextualized explanation of HR management action directly addresses the question of whether HRM is inherently unethical. The discussion draws on MacIntyre??s (Philosophy 74:311?C329, 1999, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory, Duckworth, 2000) conceptualization of moral agency within contemporary social structures. In practice, HR managers embody roles that may not be wholly compartmentalized. Alternative institutional structures can provide HR managers with a vocabulary of motives for people-centred HRM and widen the scope for the exercising of moral agency, when enacted within reflective relational spaces that provide milieus for critical questioning of logics and values. This article aims to contribute to and extend debate on whether HRM can ever be ethical, and provide a means of reconnecting business ethics with longstanding concerns in critical management studies.     

Developing a Global Mindset Through Short-Term Study Abroad

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this paper is to introduce a practical, effective method of teaching short-term study abroad courses to increase students' global awareness and lay the foundation for the development of a sophisticated global mindset in future managers. The global mindsets discussed in the literature coincide with the levels of cognitive complexity found in the critical thinking literature. Building on these traditions, we construct an approach based on facilitated, group discussion. One major advantage of this technique is that, because it is done in a group setting, it is less time-consuming for faculty than other ways of providing feedback to students during study abroad courses. Given that short-term study abroad courses have become a popular way to internationalize business school curricula, this approach offers a way to maximize the impact of these experiences.     

Enhancing Learning Performance Through Classroom Response Systems: The Effect of Knowledge in a Global Economic Environment

ABSTRACT

The international business education literature suggests that a global mindset can be acquired and benefit students to embrace new ideas and improve their critical thinking. Using a sample of 1,448 undergraduate students in Corporate Finance, International Finance, and Business Law subjects during 2013–2015, our results indicate that students with better academic performance in the subject Global Economic Environment achieve a better learning outcome in advanced functional business subjects. However, students with a better global mindset do not benefit as much from the Classroom Response Systems (CRSs) as the weaker students do.     

Global managers’ perceptions of cultural competence

To work effectively in the global business arena, managers need a strong set of intercultural management skills. When dealing with clients, co-workers, and other stakeholders at home or abroad, managers with cross-cultural competence have a distinct competitive advantage in the multicultural marketplace. Although generally accepted as a valuable asset for doing business, cross-cultural competence defies easy definition. This study attempts to conceptualize the complex term from the practitioner's point of view. What does cross-cultural competence mean to global managers? From their perspective, which aspects of culture do business people need to understand? From the universe of cultural beliefs, values, attitudes, and country-specific information, what should an executive, with limited time, focus on to develop a basic level of cultural competence? This study asked Mexican managers what they needed to know about culture to do business with the U.S. In the process, they consistently identified certain basic components of cultural competence. Responses were surprisingly similar among the managers, indicating they had a clear picture of which cultural essentials were most important for global executives to learn. The results of the study reveal a working definition of cultural competence for global managers. This research also provides trainers and business educators a content framework for a short-term training program, based on the global managers’ perceptions of cross-cultural competence.     

Meaning Making by Managers: Corporate Discourse on Environment and Sustainability in India

The globally generated concepts of environment and sustainability are fast gaining currency in international business discourse. Sustainability concerns are concurrently becoming significant to business planning around corporate social responsibility and integral to organizational strategies toward enhancing shareholder value. The mindset of corporate managers is a key factor in determining company approaches to sustainability. But what do corporate managers understand by sustainability? Our study explores discursive meaning negotiation surrounding the concepts of environment and sustainability within business discourse. The study is based on qualitative interpretive research drawing from symbolic interactionism (Blumer, Symbolic interactionism: perspective and method. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, 1969) which postulates that meaning in discourse is an essentially contested domain dependent upon negotiation in the Habermasian tradition of mutually respectful dialogue (Habermas, The theory of communicative action: lifeworld and system: a critique of functionalist reason. Beacon Press, Boston 1987). Data from semi-structured intensive interviews of a small sample of senior corporate managers was analyzed to examine how corporate elites in India frame their approach to sustainability issues and respond to external pressures for deeper corporate responsibility. The findings point to the existence of a distinctively local narrative with strong potential for the discursive negotiation of personal and collective understanding of ethical and socio-cultural values that may help internalize broader sustainability considerations into corporate decision-making processes.     

No such thing as a global manager

With the continuing growth of globalization, companies need to pay careful attention to selecting and managing people who may become their “global managers.” The best way to achieve this is by coming up with a clear concept of what constitutes such a manager. But the examination of a wide set of possible characteristics indicates that there seems to be no distinct set of such individual qualities, so there is no consistent way to point out what a global manager is. What we are left with is the search for good “conventional” managers with a global mindset who could succeed in the international marketplace.     

Linking Linear/Nonlinear Thinking Style Balance and Managerial Ethical Decision-Making

This study presents the results of an empirical analysis of the relationship between managerial thinking style and ethical decision-making. Data from 200 managers across multiple organizations and industries demonstrated that managers predominantly adopt a utilitarian perspective when forming ethical intent across a series of business ethics vignettes. Consistent with expectations, managers utilizing a balanced linear/nonlinear thinking style demonstrated a greater overall willingness to provide ethical decisions across ethics vignettes compared to managers with a predominantly linear thinking style. However, results comparing the ethical decision-making of balanced thinking managers and nonlinear thinking managers were generally inconsistent across the ethics vignettes. Unexpectedly, managers utilizing a balanced linear/nonlinear thinking style were least likely to adopt an act utilitarian rationale for ethical decision-making across the vignettes, suggesting that balanced thinkers may be more likely to produce ethical decisions by considering a wider range of alternatives and ruling out those that are justified solely on the basis of their outcomes. Implications are discussed for future research and practice related to management education and development, and ethical decision-making theory. Kevin S. Groves is an Assistant Professor of Management and Director of the PepsiCo Leadership Center at California State University, Los Angles. His research interests include managerial thinking styles, ethical decision-making, executive leadership development and succession planning systems, charismatic leadership, and leader emotional intelligence. He teaches undergraduate, MBA, and doctoral-level classes across a range of management and leadership subjects, including management competency development, organizational behavior, business ethics, and organization development and change. Dr. Groves’ recent research has been published in such journals as the Journal of Management, Human Resource Development Quarterly, Journal of Management Development, Leadership and Organization Development Journal, Journal of Management Education, and the Academy of Management Learning & Education. He received a Ph.D. in Organizational Behaviour from Claremont Graduate University. Charles Vance teaches in the area of human resource management at Loyola Marymount University. He recently completed Senior Specialist and regular Fulbright appointments in Austria and China respectively. He is the author with Yongsun Paik of the new text, Managing a Global Workforce, (M.E. Sharpe, 2006). His nonlinear penchant is expressed quarterly in cartoons and other attempts at humor in the ending “Out of Whack” section of the Journal of Management Inquiry. Dr. Yongsun Paik is a professor of international business and management in the College of Business Administration, Loyola Marmount University. He holds a Ph. D. degree in International Business from University Washington. His primary research interests focus on international human resource management, global strategic alliances, and Asia Pacific business studies. He has recently published articles in such journals as Journal of World Business, Management International Review, Journal of International Managemtn, Business Horizons, International Journal of Human Resource Management, Journal of Management Inquiry, Human Resource Management Journal, among others.     

Overcoming corporate rigidities in the dynamic Chinese market

Companies often bring in what they believed and utilized in the past when they invest in the dynamic market of China, where changing environmental conditions often render existing beliefs and practices irrelevant. Over-generalizing from past situations could become a source of corporate rigidity, which results in a company's inability to anticipate the rapid changes that require evolution in its established systems, products, and market orientation. Companies must overcome corporate rigidities if they are to respond to the huge opportunities in China in a timely manner. In our research, we identified four distinct corporate rigidities—mindset rigidity, strategic rigidity, operational rigidity, and HRM rigidity—to help managers identify and assess the impact of rigidity on their China businesses. We provide four practical strategies for overcoming the four types of corporate rigidities.     

A Three Country Comparative Analysis of Managerial CSR Perspectives: Insights From Lebanon,Syria and Jordan

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a concept that has acquired a new resonance in the global economy. With the advent of globalization, managers in different contexts have been exposed to the notion of CSR and are being pressured to adopt CSR initiatives. Yet, in view of vastly differing national cultures and institutional realities, mixed orientations to CSR continue to be salient in different contexts, oscillating between the classical perspective which considers CSR as a burden on competitiveness and the modern perspective that views CSR as instrumental for business success. Capitalizing on the two-dimensional CSR model developed by Quazi and O’Brien (Journal of Business Ethics 25, 33–51, 2000), this article assesses managerial perspectives towards CSR in three neighboring Middle Eastern countries (Lebanon, Syria and Jordan) through an empirical study involving 333 managers. The findings lend support to the Quazi and O’Brien model (2000), suggesting some commonalities in CSR orientations as well as minor divergences. The findings are discussed and cross-cultural implications drawn accordingly.     

Translating strategy into action: The importance of an agile mindset and agile slack in international business

There is growing recognition that agility, the ability to respond quickly, is essential for international business (IB) in times of daunting challenges. Drawing on the resource-based view, we argue that agility is more than a capability and therefore should be investigated from a broader perspective. The current study offers insights for the IB literature by introducing agile resources (mindset and slack) as drivers of marketing strategy effectiveness capability. An agile mindset drives firms to seek out and introduce new management methods and approaches by encouraging their members to be alert to new and innovative ways of doing things. Agile slack refers to unutilized resources that can be quickly deployed in new strategic initiatives. An analysis of survey data from 179 managers via structural equation modeling shows that an agile mindset and agile slack strongly drive marketing strategy effectiveness capability. Marketing strategy effectiveness is a crucial driver of international performance. Nevertheless, the results suggest that while agile resources are important drivers of marketing strategy effectiveness, they do not influence performance directly. Hence, a firm’s ability to exploit resources through capabilities is critical, and to be truly agile, firms must invest in agile slack resources. Managers are advised to improve their firm’s effectiveness and performance by adopting an agile mindset while relying on agile slack resources.     

Islamic Ethics and the Implications for Business

As global business operations expand, managers need more knowledge of foreign cultures, in particular, information on the ethics of doing business across borders. The purpose of this paper is twofold: (1) to share the Islamic perspective on business ethics, little known in the west, which may stimulate further thinking and debate on the relationships between ethics and business, and (2) to provide some knowledge of Islamic philosophy in order to help managers do business in Muslim cultures. The case of Egypt illustrates some divergence between Islamic philosophy and practice in economic life. The paper concludes with managerial implications and suggestions for further research.     

Acknowledging religious diversity: Opportunities and challenges

Because federal law protects an employee's right to religious accommodation, managers cannot ignore the issue of religious diversity. The matter is far broader than simple legal compliance, though. Certainly, managers need to better understand the laws protecting employees’ rights for accommodation and prohibiting disparate treatment, religious harassment, and retaliation. However, they also need to understand the various opportunities and challenges associated with acknowledging religious diversity. Concerning opportunities, research suggests that allowing employees to express aspects of their religion can enhance their work lives and, thus, the value they place on the organization. Furthermore, respect for religious diversity can encourage a useful mindset for communicating with other stakeholders in areas from advertising to the sports interests of salespeople. Since learning more about a range of faiths can lead to greater skills in working with diverse groups, we offer information on Prothero's God Is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions That Run the World—and Why Their Differences Matter and on different religions’ practices associated with death-related issues. In conclusion, we provide insight regarding the benefits of acknowledging religious diversity while respecting those who identify with no religion, and we do so without opening the door to proselytizing.     

“One of these days,things are going to change!” How do you make sense of market disruption?

The significance of mindsets is apparent in everyday business life. As today’s managers and companies face uncertainty and disruptive change in the business environment and markets, there is a growing need to understand and strategically address such change. This becomes challenging when disruptive market forces confront the institutional logic or rules of the game based on collectively acquired experience of doing business in the given field. In overcoming such challenges, managers’ hidden reasoning remains an untapped potential while their existing mindset influences what they attend to and what they decide to do. This article elaborates a diagnostic framework, accompanied by a tool to help managers make sense of disruptive markets and reflect individually and collectively on possible courses of action. The framework has two principal dimensions—strategic scope and focus—that are further divided into three business elements of strategic market-oriented management: offering, customer, and market. The tool offers a practical means of profiling individuals’ mindsets. In increasingly dynamic business environments, reflection capabilities represent a new source of competitive advantage.     

Designing and Delivering Business Ethics Teaching and Learning

The recent corporate scandals in the United States have caused a renewed interest and focus on teaching business ethics. Business schools and their faculties are reexamining the teaching of business ethics and are reassessing their responsibilities to produce honest and truthful managers who live lives of integrity and ethical accountability. The authors recognize that no agreement exists among business schools and their faculties regarding what should be the content and pedagogy of a course in business ethics. However, the authors hold that regardless of one’s biases regarding the content and pedagogy, the effective teaching of business ethics requires that the instructor in designing and delivering a business ethics course needs to focus particular attention on four principal questions: (1) what are the objectives or targeted learning outcomes of the course? (2) what kind of learning environment should be created? (3) what learning processes need to be employed to achieve the goals? and (4) what are the roles of the participants in the learning experience? The answers to these questions provide the foundations for any business ethics course. The answers are major determinants of the impact of a business ethics course on the thinking of students and the views on the ethical and professional accountabilities and responsibilities of managers in the workplace.     

Toward a gatekeeping perspective of insider–outsider relationship development in China

The aim of this study is to explore how relational gatekeepers facilitate the development of relationships between out-group members and in-group members in an intercultural business environment, and to bring to the surface the inter-cultural and inter-networked nuances of guanxi. Based on interviews with managers from China and New Zealand, the workings of Chinese–Western business relationships and the roles of relational gatekeepers are explored. Empirical findings reveal three key gatekeeping roles, namely reciprocal, adaptive and symbolic, used for enabling the development of intercultural business relationships. We offer a structural hole explanation of intercultural gatekeeping in a seemingly contradictory and irreconcilable inter-networked environment. Our study also provides strategic implications of intercultural gatekeeping for foreign outsiders and recommends practical approaches for reaching the decision makers and resource integrators in jealously protected local business networks.     

International Marketing (14th edition), by Philip R. Cateora,Mary C. Gilly,and John I. Graham

Abstract

The trend toward internationalizing business curriculum at American colleges and universities should be incorporated as a strategy throughout the United States. The catalyst that has led most business schools to adopt a systematic acceptance of the internationalization of their curriculum was the American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) 1984-1985 Standards and Guidelines for business school accreditation. Most would agree that without AACSB mandates, the transition would be slower, but inevitable, due to the focus on worldwide business issues. The global economy is rapidly evolving and the needs for competencies in international business are becoming very important to the U.S. and its economic well-being. Because of this, industry is looking for a new kind of employee, the kind that understands both the importance of international business and how to operate within it successfully. The halls of academia must respond to this pressing need by going much further than providing a sporadic array of “elective” international topics. Their response has to be synergistic with university presidents, deans and faculties fully supportive of an organizational design change that promotes a new way of thinking. The new organization is one in which there must be an international focus throughout the business school. With that synergy in place, the process of internationalizing students, the university, curriculum and faculty can move forward.