Global Mindsets

John Kuada, John Kuada

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317566861
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Negocios y empresa
• Subtopic: Negocios internacionales

Global Mindsets seeks to tackle a topic that is relatively new in research and practice, and is considered by many to be critical for firms seeking to conduct global business. It argues that multiple mindsets exist (across and within organizations), that they operate in a global context, and that they are dynamic and undergo change and action. Part of the mindset(s) may depend upon place, situation and context where individuals and organizations operate. The book examines the notion of "mindset" is situational and dynamic, especially in a global setting, why it is important for future scholars and managers and how it could be conceptualized.

The book includes conceptual chapters that push the current boundaries of research on the topic and empirical chapters that demonstrate how different organizations in different countries apply mindset perspectives in their management practices. It seeks to help academics, consultants, and researchers understand what has been said and studied about global mindsets in action and gain insights into possible directions and challenges that the field may face in the future.

1 Mindsets and Global Organizational Strategies

John Kuada

DOI: 10.4324/9781315736396-1

Introduction

In 1983, Theodore Levitt argued persuasively that globalization was a powerful force driving the world towards a “converging commonality” (Levitt, 1983: 92). In his view, mankind was in a process of creating a world where differences would disappear. In contrast to the Levittian perspective of a globalized world, cultural sociologists (leaning on social identity theory) argued that as long as nations maintain their cultural identities, the organizations located in them will subscribe to values and administrative practices that are unique to these cultures (Hofstede, 1980; Schein, 1992; Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner, 1997). Employees’ expectations and their interpretation of their organizational environment will correspondingly be different. Thus, many of the difficulties associated with cross-border business operations may be traced to differences in culture (Schein, 1992). International companies must therefore develop information processing capabilities that will enable them to acquire the knowledge they need to overcome their psychic distance as well as liabilities of foreignness to be able to operate effectively in foreign markets (Zaheer, 1995; Johanson and Vahlne, 2009). In other words, managing international business environments successfully requires continuous learning. It also requires the development of mindsets that are globally oriented (Levy, Beechler, Taylor and Boyacigiller, 2007). It has been argued that the more global the mindset of an organization, the easier it is for it to adopt and successfully implement a global strategy (Bowen and Inkpen, 2009; Javidan and Walker, 2012).

But because individuals are not blank sheets of paper on which culture writes its scripts, they do not totally adopt culturally prescribed mindsets. The general understanding is that, due to their cognitive endowments and different role identities in the various situations, individuals may reject some culturally prescribed rules of behavior or find their way around them in order to find creative solutions to specific personal and/or organizational problems. Thus, it is the reflexivity of employees as individuals over their daily interactions with others that shapes and gives meaning to the cultures of their organizations (Kuada, 2015). This perspective, therefore, acknowledges the existence of “multiple realities” that emerge through employees’ actions and therefore allow for multiple learning and innovative processes within organizations. It means one cannot discuss the internationalization processes of firms without taking cognizance of individual employees and mindsets. Individuals that demonstrate global mindset are described as those who exhibit openness as well as the cognitive capacity to mediate and integrate multiplicity.

These perspectives have encouraged the adoption of the “global mind-set” by scholars and practitioners as a summary construct that captures the manner in which individuals and organizations with global outreach think and act. The understanding is that the more global the mindset of an organization and its employees, the easier it is for them to adopt and successfully implement a global strategy. This entails the development of cognitive and behavioral repertoires that ensure the awareness, understanding, and adjustment to cultural variances and managing people with a variety of values, attitudes, beliefs, and standards in different operational environments. Individuals develop these repertoires through a continuous process of learning from experience. Thus, scholars such as Kedia and Mukherji (1999) describe global mindset in terms of a manager's openness and an ability to recognize complex interconnections, manage uncertainties within the international space, and to balance tensions that arise between the needs for universal corporate policies and local peculiarities. Similarly, Paul (2000) emphasizes the need for managers to acknowledge and endorse cultural diversity and, at the same time, strive to achieve some degree of cultural diversity.

This book provides an overview of the contemporary discourses in this emerging field and gives researchers a base to ground their thinking. It also provides a jumping-off point for possible new research directions. At face value, the notion of mindset connotes something that is set or fixed. But in practice, the chapters presented in this volume suggest that mindset can be aptly perceived as a dynamic construct. The contributions lean on the growing body of literature in the field to forward the general understanding that global mindsets are both collective (i.e., organizational) and person specific. Furthermore, it is emergent (i.e., continuously changing) as individuals and organizations continuously learn and then adopt strategies that enable them to manage uncertainties within the international space and to balance tensions that arise between the needs for universal corporate policies and local peculiarities.

Structure of the Book

The book includes both conceptual chapters that push the current boundaries of global mindset research and empirical chapters that demonstrate how different organizations in different countries apply mindset perspectives in their management practices. Given the fluid nature of global mindsets in action, we have adopted a flexible and somewhat wide-ranging approach to the discussions in the various chapters. But together, they all reinforce the contemporary understanding that, in order to succeed in a global business environment, managers need to have a global vision and a complementing strategy that help them transcend existing geographic and competitive boundaries and leverage worldwide resources in order to sustain their competitive positions.

In terms of structure, we have organized the discussion into two major sections. The first section consists of five chapters and discusses issues such as where we are now with respect to our knowledge in the field and what conceptual frameworks guide our thinking. The second section contains six chapters and provides empirical evidence about how different organizations in different parts of the world practice global mindset in different aspects of their managerial functions. Summaries of the chapters are presented here for a quick overview.

Because research into global mindsets is relatively recent, it makes sense to step back, create a summary of what is known about it, and reflect on where ideas might—or could—go next. The first major review of the global mind-set literature was published by Levy and her colleagues in 2007. Their study provided a synthesis and a critical evaluation of the available literature on the subject at that time and provided a useful classificatory framework for subsequent investigations. Leaning on the literature available at that time, they presented global mindset as a multidimensional construct operationalized by the facets of cognitive complexity and cosmopolitanism. Since then, no other scholar has attempted an elaborate review of the global mindset literature. Andreea Ioana Bujac and John Kuada's contribution to this volume helps fill the gap. They do so in Chapter 2 by reporting the results of a systematic review of 28 papers that have studied the global mindset orientation in the period from 1995–2014. The review traces the development of the global mindset construct in order to provide scholars and practitioners with an analytical assessment of the existing research on the topic. The findings suggest that the field has experienced significant progress over the last decade. The number of empirical research has increased and studies have been conducted in a variety of countries and contexts. They also showed that two themes have dominated the research—“global mindset and leadership” and “global mindset and internationalization”—and most of the researchers were found in North America and Western Europe. They have also identified a number of knowledge gaps that should receive the attention of future researchers.

In Chapter 3, Nancy K. Napier and Kelsey Crow propose a process framework that can guide executives in their efforts to deliberately shape the development of a global mindset within their organizations. They argue that many major international organizations consider it appropriate for their employees and organizations to manifest global orientations in their interactions with their stakeholders. However, they remind us that frequently there are gaps between what leaders want or desire for their organizations and what they actually get. The key challenges they identify in their process framework include: (1) articulating an organization's specific, workable version of a global mindset, (2) making that version concrete enough for employees to understand and use in how they act, (3) communicating the mindset using multiple methods, (4) evaluating employees’ ability to comprehend and execute the version, and (5) comparing actual outcomes and behaviors to intended ones.

Nigel Holden explores the shifting perspectives on the global mindset construct in the 21 st century in Chapter 4. In his view, globally oriented leaders must exhibit high levels of diplomacy in their interactions with other people. Their profiles must reflect attributes such as the ability to show empathy, to emotionally connect to people from other parts of the world, and to be able to work effectively with them. These attributes allow individuals to build trusting relationships with people who are different from them, bring divergent views together, and develop consensus among different parties.

In Chapter 5, Olav Jull Sørensen also provides a review of the concept of global mindset and then proposes a framework for capturing the essence of the concept. He applies a two-dimensional matrix to explore the construct. One dimension of the matrix features global mindset as “a state of mind” defined and nurtured by the top executives in an organization. The other dimension sees global mindset as an organizational capability. This perspective emphasizes the evolutionary characteristic of global mindset—as a “continuous state of becoming and being aligned to a dynamic context”. Furthermore, he argues that in practice, global mindset entails the development of “situational capabilities”, i.e., the capability to sense (quickly), reflect (constructively), and act purposefully (for mutual benefit). The practical usefulness of his conceptualization is illustrated with a Danish MNC.

George Tesar and Hamid Moini have made two contributions to the volume. In Chapter 6, they explore the incipiency of the “global mindset” as a construct in international management among smaller manufacturing enterprises. Their underlying argument is that a careful examination of the initial managerial activities undertaken in smaller manufacturing enterprises during the early stages of their exporting operations can provide indications of the incipiency or otherwise of a global mindset in such firms. Therefore, they developed a conceptual model for research that could detect the early traces of a global mindset with the hope that this may potentially contribute to an understanding of their subsequent international activities. They follow up on this discussion in Chapter 7 by comparing the potential of the three types of top decision makers managing smaller manufacturing enterprises to form global mindsets, and to assess the motivations, or reasons, why decision makers develop global mindsets related to the needs of their unique smaller manufacturing enterprises. They argue, on the basis of their analyses, that there is a relationship between different types of smaller manufacturing enterprises managers and their individual propensity to develop a global mindset.

In Chapter 8, Quan Hoang Vuong introduces the concept of “mindsponge processes” to provide a framework for studying global mindset among Vietnamese firms. The “mindsponge processes” seeks to describe a global mind-set as a “dynamic” process of inducting and expelling socio-cultural values. This process poses varieties of challenges and it behooves management to understand the mechanisms that individuals and/or organizations adopt to learn from their environments and shape their global mindset. The chapter provides guidelines to management in its effort to understand and influence the process within an emerging economy context, using Vietnam as an example.

I have earlier argued that culture has been frequently presented as a defining construct of global mindset in most studies. To the extent that organizations are seen as products of their society's culture, and are rooted in its deeper patterns, they socialize their managers and employees to use these cultural values and characteristics as reference points in their engagement with other people in other parts of the world. This strengthens their conviction in the management practices that have proved successful in their cultures and encourages them to transfer these practices to their collaborative partners. But it also carries the risk of discouraging them from questioning the assumptions that govern their behaviors. This understanding has motivated my study of culture's consequences of Danish-Ghanaian interfirm collaborations in Chapter 9. The key argument is that partners in cross-border relations must demonstrate high levels of cultural intelligence in order to operate successfully. The empirical evidence discussed in the chapter shows that cultural intelligence is even more important in relationships between partners from very dissimilar cultures and when there is an imbalance in the resources of the collaborating partners, making one partner more dependent on the other. Following Earley and Ang (2003), I argue that culturally intelligent individuals avoid employing automatic cognitive processing mechanisms in new situations—i.e., they suspend judgment partially when they operate in new contexts and/or are assessing situations. The ability to suspend judgment reduces the incidence of cultural errors in highly sensitive business situations where mutual suspicion tends to be rife.

Chapter 10 discusses the challenges of building a global mindset from the ground up and uses evidence from a Danish company to illustrate it. It is a joint contribution from Olav Jull Sorensen, Nigel Holden, Nancy K. Napier, George Tesar, and myself. We argue that some MNCs tend to initiate their corporate global mindset development process from the helm of their companies. When the adoption of a global mindset is initiated by top management, this takes the form of “sensegiving” (Maitlis and Sonenshein, 2010) whereby other organizational members are encouraged to construct new meanings of their interactions with others. The weaknesses of this approach have been illustrated with evidence from a Danish company where the employees in both headquarters and subsidiaries expressed reservations about top management “imposed” mindsets. We therefore argue that it is more appropriate for MNCs to allow their corporate mindset development process to be driven less by structure and more by interactive process of managers and employees engaged in a wide variety of activities and at multiple levels of the company. We further advise that the composition of the top management team and the board of directors ought to reflect the diversity of markets in which the company wants to compete. In terms of mindset, a multicultural board could help operating managers to facilitate reflection and learning through providing a...