Abstract
Robert French is a university professor in the USA specialising in organisational leadership and World Christianity. The book is the author’s, largely unedited, PhD dissertation from Eastern University, USA. It is laid out using a fairly typical PhD structure including introduction, literature review, methodology, results and analysis and finally proposals for conceptual and theoretical analysis. The book is a reprint of the thesis, so inevitably contains considerable repetition. French focuses on the not-for-profit sector, using the United Methodist Church (UMC), of which he is a member, as a case study. I was keen to read this book as there is a comparative dearth of literature in the field, combined with a lack of clarity as to what constitutes a global mindset. In my experience, mission agencies are aware of the big step-up for leaders when they move from local or national to international roles. They want to develop global leaders with a global mindset, yet struggle to identify what that means and how to go about it. French aims to contribute to the literature on global mindset through empirical research, seeking to identify key factors that shape this capability.
I found the greatest contribution of the book to be the author’s comprehensive and superbly analysed literature review. This probably justifies the purchase of the book.
There is a common belief that global mindset leads to greater global effectiveness, but there is little agreement over the conceptualisation of the term. He begins his review in the late 1960s, with an introduction to Perlmutter’s work focused on the individual’s posture towards cultural diversity. Others focused on context, with global mindset seen as a sense-making capability in the face of complexity. The field of study developed in the 1980s and 1990s in the growing world of multi-national corporations and the question of how leaders grow effectiveness when they move across cultures. Global mindset became a study of global leadership and many different concepts were used to explore this skill. Since 2007, French suggests studies have followed three main routes; first, multidimensional approaches integrating culture and context and second, an approach set out by the Global Mindset Project (GMP). Begun in 2004, this describes global mindset as ‘the capability to influence others unlike yourself’. The work is founded on three key capitals: intellectual, psychological and social. Finally, French highlights studies that claim to trace a new path. What stands out for French is the lack of any agreed conceptualisation of global mindset across the field.
This is borne out by his careful study of the 36 definitions of global mindset taken from 94 contributions. Of these definitions, two key things stand out: (1) global mindset is understood as essential for individual and organisational success; and (2) attention is fixed on understanding global realities without explaining how this leads to success. These studies focus is on the ‘global’ in global mindset. Of the 94 studies analysed, 85% did not even define the word mindset. French considers the lack of focus on mindset as the primary reason why scholars are unable to demonstrate a link between global mindset and effectiveness.
French then reviews the literature on mindset. The first, and most widely tested view of mindset, comes from the field of cognitive psychology. Mindset is understood as ‘the sum total of cognitive processes activated to complete a specific task’.
Second, and also well tested in the fields of social psychology and organisational leadership, is that mindset is ‘a cognitive filter that functions as a lens for the totality of an individual’s cognition’. Finally, he cites his own definition as ‘cognition, cognitive processes and responses to tasks but also inherent beliefs or views of reality’ (p. 32).
French considers that literature on global mindset as undermined in general by a lack of an espoused general theory. Of the 94 works reviewed, only 37% reviewed mentioned any general theory guiding their work, of which 40% of these were learning theories. Most situated their study within the field of leadership.
Finally, French considers the place of global knowledge within the global mindset literature. This is seen by some as the foundation for global mindset and its development. The kinds of knowledge needed are wide ranging, yet, French asserts, none of these types of knowledge have been empirically researched in relation to global mindset.
In the light of his literature review, French sets out to study two types of knowledge: global knowledge of industry (Church) and organisation (United Methodist Church, UMC). He chooses to situate his study in a Christian organisation, an environment unstudied in this kind of research. Considerable space is devoted to a detailed description of his methodology. He employs mixed methods: a quantitative survey of UMC clergy taken from one Methodist conference on the east coast of the USA, followed by qualitative interviews of five regional superintendents and finally, an integrating process of the two approaches. The description of methodological approach is interesting for an aspiring PhD student but of less interest to a more general readership. The same is even more so for the detailed statistical analysis of the results, which would have benefited from clearer, simpler summaries. French recognises that his results need to be interpreted cautiously, particularly given the demographic he has surveyed: 61% male, 95% Caucasian, 73% between ages 45 and 64.
Overall, his conclusion is that ‘Statistical significance was observed in the relationship between knowledge specific to the global industry (i.e. Church) and global mindset, but not for knowledge specific to the global organisation (UMC)’ (p. 91). Furthermore, there was no statistical relationship demonstrated between a range of variables (time outside country of origin, fluency in a second language and age) and global mindset. Other studies have suggested that these variables are significant in shaping global mindset. The research also revealed a significant gap between participants’ belief in the identity of UMC as a global organisation and confidence that it could act as one. This surfaced primarily through concerns about differences in views of human sexuality.
The final chapter provides French with the opportunity to propose a new way of understanding global mindset, in contrast to that articulated by the Global Mindset Project. He suggests, ‘a global mindset is comprised of two mindsets that enable an individual to effectively process global information by differentiating global complexities and cultural diversity (differentiative mindset) and integrating what has been differentiated within a specific context (integrative mindset)’ (p. 99).
The problem for the reader is that this proposal, interesting as it is, bears no direct connection to French’s research. The proposal appears speculative and opens up other domains of knowledge such as functional brain neuroscience. French alludes to this himself when, to the end of the book, he states that future research may show that this is not what is going on in a global mindset.
Having admitted that his research makes a tentative link between global industry knowledge and global mindset, he then places a great deal of weight on the importance of knowledge in growing a global mindset. He points out the vastness of the fields of knowledge but then suggests that ‘global knowledge should be relatively easy to identify, widely accessible and inexpensive for both individuals and organisations’ (p. 107). This emphasis on cognition seems at odds with what we know of the importance of social, cultural and emotional intelligences in leading generally and particularly in negotiating global leadership contexts.
In conclusion, despite its limitations, the book is informative and stimulating and an important contribution to the literature on global mindset.
