Fbl5010 Managing People : Combination Assessment Answers

Answer:

Introduction

Global mindset is all about keeping up with the global environment, if business restrict themselves to their own country then would be very difficult to gain a competitive advantage over others. In the present scenario where under the pressure of competition organization expand their businesses but lack of global awareness can often create problems that would make all the endeavors of the business nothing but waste. Therefore, it is required by the individuals and the organization as a whole to have a global mindset, which is to gain knowledge about other cultures throughout the globe and then process the information for the carrying out the various activities within the organization. The following essay will throw light on global mindset and its relevance in business. The essay starts with literature review that contains the theories related to global mindset and its development. After the discussion of global mindset, an evaluation with the help of survey and interview is done. The summary of the results of the evaluation based on in interview and survey has been included in the appendix. After the evaluation, the essay focuses on individual goals that are set. These goals are based on the big five personality traits. The big five personality traits are very important for the individuals within an organization so that they can have a global mindset. Two goals are set and discussions of planning for achieving those goals have also been discussed in the essay. Both goals are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time bound. The activities have been discussed, it consists of the activities that will be carried out for development of the skills, there will also be a short discussion on the current capabilities and how it is useful for having a global mindset. In the end of the essay a conclusion on the entire essay, the literature review, evaluation and planning.

Literature review

The success of any organization depends on the fact that how well the individual employee and the organization analysis and interpretation of the complex organizational environment. The internal complexity of the mindset of the managers within an organization should be at par with the complexity with the Global environment. The managers of any organization should have a be flexible in their thinking, it is required for them to consider things from the global perspective. The managers should not restrict themselves to their organization, if they want to gain competitive advantage the managers needs to think differently from the other companies, which would require following the global trends and strategize accordingly.

According to Tuleja, (2014) Global mindset is the ability to grab information, traditions and cultural norms from different part of the world and the capability to conceptualize these to affect all the environments. It is a combination of openness and awareness of diverse cultures that exist within the premise of a market. A company where the managers have a global mindset the cultural and geographic diversities are considered as opportunities for the exploitation and preparation of internal capabilities so that the organization can adopt effective practices and innovative ideas. Technological revolution and ideological change are the twin forces are making the issue of globalization very important for the companies, which makes it very important for the managers as well as the organization to have a global mindset so that the firms can represent themselves globally (Tuleja, 2014).   

Life experiences and brain are very important while discussing the mindset. Three features are required for businesses that aim at having global mindset, these are, intellectual attribute, psychological attribute, social attribute. Intellectual attribute is that tendency to understand and interpret any new information. This is the ability of the organization to be able to use the business savvy methods in the process of learning about new cultures. Those employees that have global mindset would try to know more about the thinking patterns of people of different cultures around the world and then react to the circumstances (Vogelgesang, Clapp-Smith & Osland, 2014). Psychological attribute is about the interest that one has in knowing about other cultures. This would require the employee to take extra effort in knowing the cultures across the globe. Employees who have closed minds will always find difficult to adjust with co-workers from other countries. Social attribute is the ability of the employees to have empathy for colleagues who are from other country. As per the views of the experts the intellectual, psychological and social capitals combine to make global mindsets, it guarantees that the assignees are prepared to get success in global environment (Thomas, 2016).  

In the present global economic condition, it very important to have cultural awareness an intercultural competence as it leads to success in a competitive environment. Successful businesses across the globe are striving hard to get the top position in multinational organizations. It is not enough for the organizations to have good track record in their own country. According to a research conducted by Harvard Business Review, global mindset is something that is required for the organizations to be successful in playing a global part, which requires them to adapt to different environments and the ability to work in harmony with international co-workers (Teagarden & Schotter, 2013).

Training programs for cultural awareness and global mobility can provide the employees required tools and strategies to communicate effectively and efficiently with their foreign counterparts, it aims at reducing the stress related to international environment. It helps in adaptation of management style and understands the motivation of the new counterparts so that a good cultural atmosphere can be made. When one gets familiar to different cultural values they can understand the behaviors of the employees of another country. Understanding of behaviors of the employees avoids the crises that often arise from the behavior of employees, and thus can avoid the risk that circles any particular project. Global mindset will also help the employees to know their customer in another country (Story et al., 2014). All business wants to compete in global environment, competing in global environment would require the managers to know their customers, understanding their culture which might vary from country to country, and two countries might have conflicting cultural values so it also requires the managers to be smart enough  to handle this two scenarios differently and not mixing them. Any business before its plans to expand internationally needs to understand the requirements of people in that country. If the product that the company is planning to sell in another country is actually not required by the people of the country or is culturally not acceptable then money spend in expansion of the business in that particular country would be a failed project (Cseh, Davis & Khilji, 2013).

The concept of global mindset first came to existence in Perlmutter’s taxonomy n the year 1969, according to the concept it divided the global mindset into three divisions, ethnocentric, that which is based on home country or can be referred to as home country mindset. The second is   polycentric, which is host country mindset and the third division is geocentric, the global mindset. Geocentrism was further described as transnational mindset. Global mindset has always been correlated to the strategic success of any enterprise (Stajkovic et al., 2018).

There are certain limitations to the studies of global mindset because there is lack of definite description of global mindset. According to Schmieder et al (2016), global strategy correlates to the wider international scope. It was also found in the studies that too much focus on the global matters is equally risky and harmful as too little attention. Global mindset require strategy and not assumption. Global mindset is definitely important for the managers of any organization for financial performance and sustainability. Global mindset together with global leadership leads to global effectiveness, all it requires that individuals are aware of the global environment and the measures to survive and sustain in global market. There are measures can help in development of global mindset, one of the most effective method is cross-cultural interactions (Schmieder et al., 2016)

Evaluation of Global mindset

For self-assessment of global mindset, three instruments were selected, these three instruments are big five personality traits, Global mindset Inventory and Thomas-Kilman conflict mode assessment. All three instruments were selected for self-assessment of presence and absence of certain traits that are required for having a global mindset so that further a plan can be made for the development of these capabilities (Mikhaylov & Fierro, 2015).

Global Mindset inventory

Global mindset inventory is an online self-assessment instrument of 76 questions. These questions determine the intellectual, psychological and social capital of individuals. After undertaking the test, it was found that that intellectual capital was high with a score of 4, the score for psychological capital was also high, 4. The score for social capital was low, 3.5 (Henson, 2016).

Having a high intellectual score means that the intellectual level is very high and such people reason things and are logical, they take their decisions wisely, they avoid hasty actions based on emotions. This quality helps people to be emotionally intelligent because they think about the consequences before taking actions. People with high psychological capital are optimistic, hopeful, empathetic, these traits makes individuals a positive individual and being empathetic helps people understand the feelings of other people.  Social skills are very much required for mixing with people of different culture. Generally, people are selective while choosing company and people who are not social find it harder to come out of their comfort zone and initiate a conversation with people who are completely different in ideology because of their different cultural background (Luthans, Youssef-Morgan & Avolio, 2015).

The next instrument selected was the big five personality test, as per the big five personality test it was found that two traits of big five personality traits has a low rating, 3. There was a low rating for neuroticism and extraversion. People having low rating in neuroticism means that those individuals are not organized.  This particular quality is required for all individuals for their personal and professional lives (Leutner et al, 2014).

The next tool used for self-assessment of global mindset is Thomas-Kilman conflict mode, this tool assess the individual conflict handling abilities. There are five conflict-handling modes, competing, collaborating, compromising, avoiding and accommodating.

According to the results of this assessment, the percentile sore for the accommodating mode is 76 percent. The percentile score for compromising mode was 58 percent. The percentile score for avoiding mode was 49 percent. The percentile score for competing mode is 44 percent and the percentile score for collaborating mode is 26 percent (Felício, Meidut? & Kyvik, 2016).

The percentile score for accommodating mode is the highest. It means that it is used more often. People with high accommodating percentile scores tends to settle the conflicts with sensivity and support.  People who use this mode more frequently are generous and compassionate. The range of compromising mode is medium and the percentile score is 58 percent. The percentile score for avoiding mode is 49 percent which falls under medium range it means that people using this mode generally avoid the conflict situations. The percentile score for competing is 44 percent, this falls under medium range people using this mode are non-cooperative. The percentile score for collaborating mode is 26 percent which means that people using this mode do not believe in  self-sacrifice rather they believe that the conflicts should be handled fairly and self-sacrifice does not resolve the conflicts rather it suppresses the real issue and no solution is found (Javidan & Bowen, 2013).

(Javidan & Bowen, 2013)

Thorough Plan

Several traits are required for having a global mindset, as per the big five-personality trait. There are five personality traits, openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism. After doing personal evaluation, it was found that the traits like extraversion and conscientiousness are not to be developed because these two traits are important for having a global mindset. The current capabilities include, ability to mix with people of different culture, ability to understand a different culture, other capabilities include, openness, agreeableness and neuroticism. The two goals are related to this to traits, the goals are to develop the skills of extraversion and conscientiousness. The goals are par with the SMART framework, which is

S- Specific, the goals are specific because they are related to the big five personality traits. M in the SMART framework stands for measurable; the goals are measurable because the performances can be measured from its outcomes. A- Attainable the goals are attainable, with the help of the designed plans the goal can be achieved. R- Relevant, the goals are very important because they are related to the big five personality trait which is very important for having a global mindset. T- Time bound, the plan will be carried out in a period of six months (Andresen & Bergdolt, 2017).

The plan will involve interaction with people, socializing with people will help inculcate qualities that an extrovert has; it will help in gaining knowledge about the culture of different people with a different cultural background. For the next five months, it has been planned that no socializing events will be participated as much as possible. Techniques like public speaking will be helpful for developing extraversion skills. Personality development classes will be undertaken. Expressing one is very important and therefore skills will be developed where one do not find it difficult to express oneself because introverts face this problem often. The other activity, which is one of the most important activities that are required for development of extraversion, it is interaction with people with different cultural backgrounds, coming out of one’s comfort zone in context to selection of people for interaction, because it is seen that introverts are selective about their choices of people for interaction (Romano & Platania, 2014). The planning for becoming an extrovert would require an activity that is to be carried by oneself, there are few qualities that would be required to be developed first, a deep refection would be required because it is important that individuals know how they can know their feelings, like knowing the reason behind being reserve.  Once the reason is known it becomes easier to work on those skills. Taking up short term linguistics classes because often communication and low self esteem is the reason for introversion. Classes might be of a different foreign language like French or German (Holden, 2016).

Other goal is to develop the conscientiousness; this quality is to be able to be organized. The planning for development of this particular goal would require to changing the lifestyle, the things that will be done would be keeping record of all the activities one does, how it has been done, was the activity productive and what could have been the most appropriate way to do that particular task. These questions will help to know the extent one is organized. Scheduling is very important to be organized, prioritizing the tasks based on the urgency. A technique should be followed even for carrying out regular activities for instance if one loves to read books then it should be done in systemized way so that it is beneficial. Another most important activity would be time management, time management is the key to success for people who are organized. Making time tables, it is an old technique which is not practiced as much these days but it is very effective for time management. “Things to do” list will be either made as sticky note in the desktop or it can be maintained in the phone. Setting reminders, it is also helpful for keeping track of activities that is to be done and hence can also help in being organized (Raman et al., 2013).

Conclusion:

Thus, it can be concluded that global mindset is an essential element for surviving in the present environment, which is very competitive. All the organizations are required to have a mindset that is not restricted to any particular country. To survive in the present scenario global leadership is very important, for which the managers are required to inculcate global mindset and encourage their employees to have global mindset.  For development of global mindset, a number of traits are required. These traits can be developed with the help of training and development. One needs inculcate the following traits, openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism. If one is ready to adapt as per the environment then it will not be difficult work with global counterparts. Individuals need to be extrovert so that they can lead; agreeableness is about having empathy for people and understanding other individuals. Neuroticism is about being organized; one cannot achieve any goal if they are not organized. In the evaluation, it was found that two of the traits neuroticism and extraversion were absence and hence two separate separate plans were made out for the development of these traits.

References:

Andresen, M., & Bergdolt, F. (2017). A systematic literature review on the definitions of global mindset and cultural intelligence–merging two different research streams. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 28(1), 170-195.

Cseh, M., B. Davis, E., & E. Khilji, S. (2013). Developing a global mindset: Learning of global leaders. European Journal of Training and Development, 37(5), 489-499.

Felício, J. A., Meidut?, I., & Kyvik, Ø. (2016). Global mindset, cultural context, and the internationalization of SMEs. Journal of Business Research, 69(11), 4924-4932.

Henson, R. (2016). Building an Organizational Global Mindset Culture: Implications for Practice. In Successful Global Leadership(pp. 261-283). Palgrave Macmillan US.

Holden, N. J. (2016). Globalization, Regionalization, and Global Mindset. Exploration and Perspectives, Global Mindsets, 49.

Javidan, M., & Bowen, D. (2013). The ‘global mindset’of managers. Organizational dynamics, 42(2), 145-155.

Leutner, F., Ahmetoglu, G., Akhtar, R., & Chamorro-Premuzic, T. (2014). The relationship between the entrepreneurial personality and the Big Five personality traits. Personality and individual differences, 63, 58-63.

Luthans, F., Youssef-Morgan, C. M., & Avolio, B. J. (2015). Psychological capital and beyond. Oxford University Press, USA.

Mikhaylov, N. S., & Fierro, I. (2015). Social capital and global mindset. Journal of International Education in Business, 8(1), 59-75.

Raman, R., Chadee, D., Roxas, B., & Michailova, S. (2013). Effects of partnership quality, talent management, and global mindset on performance of offshore IT service providers in India. Journal of International Management, 19(4), 333-346.

Romano, J., & Platania, J. (2014). Attitudes towards internationalism through the lens of cognitive effort, global mindset, and cultural intelligence.

Schmieder, J., Madjidi, F., Frazier, L., & Juarez, D. (2016). The Emerging Global Leader: The New Global Leadership Preparation Program for The Future. Journal of Global Leadership, 186.

Stajkovic, A. D., Bandura, A., Locke, E. A., Lee, D., & Sergent, K. (2018). Test of three conceptual models of influence of the big five personality traits and self-efficacy on academic performance: A meta-analytic path-analysis. Personality and Individual Differences, 120, 238-245.

Stevens, M., Bird, A., Mendenhall, M. E., & Oddou, G. (2014). Measuring global leader intercultural competency: Development and validation of the Global Competencies Inventory (GCI). In Advances in global leadership (pp. 115-154). Emerald Group Publishing Limited.

Story, J. S., Barbuto, J. E., Luthans, F., & Bovaird, J. A. (2014). Meeting the challenges of effective international HRM: Analysis of the antecedents of global mindset. Human Resource Management, 53(1), 131-155.

Teagarden, M. B., & Schotter, A. (2013). Leveraging intellectual capital in innovation networks. Organizational Dynamics, 42(4), 281.

Thomas, K. W. (2016). An Overview of the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument (TKI). Kilmann Diagnostics website, https://www. kilmanndiagnostics. com/overview-thomas-kilmann-conflict-mode-instrument-tki.

Tuleja, E. A. (2014). Developing cultural intelligence for global leadership through mindfulness. Journal of Teaching in International Business, 25(1), 5-24.

Vogelgesang, G., Clapp-Smith, R., & Osland, J. (2014). The relationship between positive psychological capital and global mindset in the context of global leadership. Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies, 21(2), 165-178.