Managerial Self-Concept in a Global Context

Abstract

The level of sociocultural adaptation a global manager undergoes when relocating from his or her home country affects the rate and severity of adjustment for that individual. To reduce the potentially negative impact of the lack of cross-cultural competencies, it is critical for individuals to have a concise understanding of their self-concept, recognizing their strengths and weaknesses. Self-concept is critical to learn how to effectively gain cross-cultural competencies. It is suggested that in their home country a manager has three points of reference to determine one’s self-concept—individual, group, and organization. The culture of the international posting country provides a fourth reference point. This article draws on a competency-based view to form the basis for self-evaluation and the development of a composite self-concept. Moreover, it proposes an implementation “roadmap” for developing cross-cultural competencies of global managers.

Keywords

self-concept cross-cultural competencies motivation theory composite self-image

I think I can, I think I can, I think I can . . .

—Piper (1954)

There may be a lot more to the moralistic children’s story about the little, anthropomorphic locomotive engine that could pull the “big train” over the mountain while repeating its motto, “I think I can, I think I can.” Self-confidence provides the bedrock for success in most human endeavors (Uhlmann & Cohen, 2007; Uskul & Hynie, 2007). Without confidence in one’s self, the probability of accomplishing even the simplest goals comes into question. More complex issues such as those experienced in developing cross-cultural competencies are of particular concern for managers working in the global marketplace (Selmer, 1999). The more difficult the task, such as would be encountered on an overseas assignment for a prolonged period of time, the higher the level of confidence in one’s self is needed (Chen & Bliese, 2002; Jordan & Cartwright, 1998; Luthans, Zhu, & Avolio, 2006; Mak, Westwood, Ama, & Barker, 1999).

Without the bedrock of self-confidence, expatriate managers will suffer from lack of self–assurance, increasing their likelihood of failure during a global assignment. In addition, these expatriate managers will have a difficult time in developing a critical element needed to effectively manage in a global context—the development of a global mindset (i.e., a diverse set of experiences, perceptions, and insights into how to effectively compete in the global marketplace; Kedia & Mukherji, 1999; Kefalas, 1998; Paul, 2000). A unique global mindset becomes specifically valuable when the structure of a global organization shifts from a multinational hierarchy to a global network organization to support the change from multidomestic to global and transnational strategies (Baruch & Altman, 2002; see Figure 1).

Figure 1.

Developing a global mindset

This article is divided into four sections. First, we explore self-concept in the context of a competency-based view of the organization. Second, composite self-concept is developed to illustrate the multilevel analysis of self-concept that is needed to fully understand its impact on learning and addressing complex tasks. Third, the concept of group self-efficacy is examined to better understand the impact of the group and the organization on one’s self-concept. Finally, a process for implementing cross-cultural competencies based on self-concept is introduced. The addition of the cultural component of the international posting country presents an added point of reference relative to the global manager’s self-concept development.

A Competency-Based View of One’s Self-Concept

A competency-based perspective of self-concept explicitly addresses the dynamic nature of the environment or context of developing one’s self-concept. Those competencies need to be renewed and developed over time. This renewal suggests that an individual should formulate a strategic intent to discover and develop new competencies of relevance to developing a positive self-concept through the development of complementary competencies (Sanchez & Heene, 1997).

Competencies are divided into three distinct categories: (a) input competencies—personal attributes/demographic characteristics, education, training/development, working experience, personal experience, and other factor inputs to an individual’s make-up; (b) managerial competencies—work-related capabilities, social knowledge, political capital, political skill, interpersonal networks, and social capital; and (c) transformation-based competencies—the ability of a manager to accomplish the tasks necessary to gain or establish knowledge, skills, and abilities (Harvey, Speier, & Novicevic, 1999). Each of the three distinct categories of competencies will be briefly discussed in more detail.

Input Competencies

Input resources play a critical role in developing positive self-concept and the continual building of a positive self-concept. These competencies would be identified in a resource-based view of the individual: the bundling of tangible and intangible internal resources that are valuable, rare, imperfectly mobile, and inimitable (Barney, 1991). These input resources may include physical characteristics of the individual manager, past experience, and specific human resources that enable the individual to effectively develop these individual input resources and may also include personal experience that the person has acquired outside the work environment. The personal skill inventory represents a unique set of skills that are difficult to duplicate and are essential to developing a positive self-concept. These input competencies are the bedrock or foundation for acquiring additional capabilities to differentiate the global manager from other managers.

Managerial Competencies

Managerial competencies focus on the global manager’s vision, decisions, and actions necessary to realize his/her effectiveness (Lado, Boyd, & Wright, 1992). Managerial competencies may create sustained competitive advantage directly if the global manager is able to exploit unique and/or specific competencies. These competencies are particularly valuable to the global manager if he or she provides an institutional bridge between the cultural, social, and political divides often found between the domestic and foreign subsidiaries. As these managerial competencies develop, the resulting outcomes from implementing new strategic visions may reshape the thinking, actions, and even the worldview of the global manager, ultimately evolving into a global mindset for the manager (Kefalas, 1998; Paul, 2000). The objective for the global manager would be to create multidimensional competencies (e.g., cross-cultural communications skills and negotiation skills) to facilitate effective management and implementation of global goals as well as local initiatives. Developing this multilevel competency may result in a superior performance of the global manager because such initiatives would be consistent with the needs and role expectations in the global organization. The global manager who is an effective manager while on overseas assignment has a heightened opportunity to enhance the individual manager’s self-concept.

Transformation-Based Competencies

The global manager may also need to acquire and develop competencies to more effectively address issues and collaborative relationships with external entities and institutions (i.e., government agencies, banks, suppliers, customers, and strategic alliance partners) and key individuals in the host countries. This broad set of competencies has been labeled as transformation-based competencies. Transformation-based competencies are those that enable the global manager to transform inputs into outputs. These may include interpersonal skills such as heightened communication skills, well-developed negotiation skills, political skills, and international networking capabilities. Similarly, these competencies may create a collective experience base and/or learning capability resulting in an conducive learning experience that is difficult for other managers to replicate and therefore can create a relative competitive advantage over other global managers (Roth & O’Donnell, 1996; S. Taylor, Beechler, & Napier, 1996).

Transformation-based competencies can play a critical role for global managers. First, there may be situations (e.g., dealing with host country government officials, working with new environmental agencies, interfacing with nongovernmental organizations, etc.), outside the existing manager’s experience/network, that the new global manager’s network of relationships may have the knowledge or relationships to help the organization. By using competent global managers who have developed a self-concept with multiple skills, global managers are developing a specific competency that is difficult for global competitors to duplicate. Furthermore, the tacit knowledge gained through having highly competent global managers overseas can be brought back and embedded into the domestic organization-specific routines, which in turn can facilitate organizational learning. This would ultimately increase organizational effectiveness in global competitiveness.

By combining the three distinct categories of competencies effectively, the global manager can configure a repertoire of strategic skills relative to a specific national competitive environment, while at the same time be mindful of the need to adapt strategies that are attuned to the local needs of individual countries. The development of a global mindset requires managers to interact with others who possess complementary competencies, while maintaining a proactive posture relative to the value of assembling, motivating, and retaining a multicultural management team for use in global organizations (Kedia & Mukherji, 1999; Kefalas, 1998; Paul, 2000). Therefore, a global manager selection, development, and staffing system needs to be developed that facilitates effective deployment of the manager-specific self-competencies based on the individual’s stage of professional development. The focus of this development is on renewing specific social/political competencies of global managers and heightening their self-concept. It is envisioned that global managers’ self-concept is a composite of the individual, group, and organization’s (e.g., composite self-concept) conceptualization of the self-concept of the global manager.

The Composite Self-Concept

When one is contemplating developing cross-cultural competencies, the logical starting point is to direct attention to one’s self-concept (Luthans et al., 2006; Markus & Kunda, 1986; Marsh, 1987). An awareness of and relatively permanent self-assessment of oneself is the foundation of learning, creativity, and experimentation. Therefore, it is important to examine what impact the development of one’s self-concept has on learning. The resulting composite self-concept is what the individual perceives, what individuals in critical groups think of the individual, and the assessments of the critical decision makers in the organization about an individual (see Figure 2). The three levels that make up the composite self-concept can be consistent (i.e., all three levels have similar perceptions), or in some cases, they may be inconsistent (i.e., viewpoints at various levels are in conflict with each other).

Figure 2.

Multiple levels of self-concept

When self-concept is consistent among the three entities, the strength of self-concept is stronger and the individuals’ confidence in their ability to accomplish tasks or to take on new problems is heightened. The more complex or difficult the task, the more important it is that the individual has a consistent composite self-concept (Marsh, 1987; Uhlmann & Cohen, 2007). Therefore, one is attempting to build cross-cultural competencies consistent with one’s self-concept across all levels of the composite self-concept (see Figure 3), leading to the following research propositions.

Figure 3.

Assessment of self-concept consistency: macro, meso, and micro levels

Research Proposition 1: Consistency of self-concept across three levels of analysis will increase the effectiveness of expatriate managers while on foreign assignment.

Research Proposition 2: Inconsistency among the three levels of the expatriate manager’s self-concept will need to be resolved or the expatriate manager will experience stress and conflict as to what his/her role is to be during the foreign assignment.

As is illustrated in Figure 3, individuals have three points of reference in determining their self-concept. One reference point is their own assessment of how competent they feel relative to a variety of different tasks. At the same time, individuals look for cues from their work group as well as from the organization itself. Figure 3 illustrates that cues from the group and organization can be positive or negative. The key consideration in determining one’s composite self-concept is the consistency of the cues. When the individual has conflicting signals from the group and his own perception, the damage to self-concept can prove to be detrimental to the goal. It should also be noted that the level of influence of groups/organizations can vary at different times. The key to the temporal dimension of assessing self-concept is to identify those individuals/groups/organizations that have an impact and to delineate the time periods when each entity has direct impact on the individual’s self-concept. At the same time, one must recognize that there is an ongoing cumulative (over time) impact that various entities may have on one’s self-concept (Gross, 1984; Harvey & Novicevic, 2001; Lee & Liebenau, 1999; Mosakowski & Earley, 2000), leading to the following research proposition.

Research Proposition 3: The accumulative impact of inconsistent self-concept can jeopardize overall performance of expatriate managers while on overseas assignments.

The inhibitors of developing a strong, consistent self-concept vary across the three levels of competencies as well as across different timeframes/horizons. Figure 2 illustrates the three levels of the composite self-concept as well as the impact of lack of knowledge, lack of ability/skills, and the expertise needed to effectively work in a cross-cultural context. Without knowledge, it is practically impossible to have the self-confidence to successfully undertake the problems associated with developing cross-cultural competencies. The lack of knowledge may be attributed to the absence of education, training, or a social network to learn from by the individual. At the same time, at the group level, knowledge may be inhibited by the composition of the group (e.g., too homogeneous, no difference in viewpoints or by contrast, too heterogeneous/diverse and the inability to relate to each other to learn). The lack of learning at the organizational level may be due to the people who are recruited to the organization and the lack of investment in developing and/or improving the human capital once they join the organization (Luthans et al., 2006; Uhlmann & Cohen, 2007). For example, third-country nationals are frequently referred to as “hired guns” who are used due to their knowledge of the global marketplace but are frequently less attuned to organizational politics or long-run goals.

As one learns, one must convert such learning into abilities or skills or the value of the information is negated (E. Taylor, 1994). A stepping-stone for building self-concept is to employ knowledge to improve one’s ability to successfully perform tasks. The more difficult the task, the greater the level of skills needed to be successful (Mak et al., 1999; Stier, 2003). The inhibitors to translating knowledge into abilities or skills can also be found in all three levels of self-concept (see Table 1). To gain the highest level of self-confidence, one must convert skills into functional expertise (Griffith & Harvey, 2001; Harvey & Novicevic, 2005). The lack of expertise varies from one level of analysis to another in the composite self-concept, but most inhibitors appear to be related to a lack of communication between the individual, group, and organization, leading to the following research proposition.

Table 1.

Inhibitors to Development of Individual, Group, and Organizational Cross-Cultural Competency

Type of Inhibitor by Level	Lack of Knowledge	Lack of Ability/Skills	Lack of Expertise
Individual variables	Lack of education Lack of certification Lack of training Limited Network of Relationships No incentive to join organization	Lack of job experience No professional association Lack of promotion Limited Responsibility Lack of development of internal/external personal networks	Low level of organizational responsibility Lack of recognition for accomplishments No mentoring Little to no personal development
Group variables	Composition of the group (demographic character) Number of group members Stability of the group Formal/informal group processes not established Lack of leadership	Group capabilities and experiences limited Limited group synergy Group viewed as not adding value Lack of rewards for group productivity	Group not integral to the success of the organization Group considers a failure by other groups Decrease in influence, power of the group in the organization
Organizational variables	Corporate reputation that hinders recruiting/retention Lack of investment in human capital or development Process oriented	Lack of organization development programs Limited perspectives of the “right way” Lack of learning organization culture	Not benchmarking to top organization (in/out of industry) Not aware of value-added by intangible capitals Not developing intangible capitals Increase intangible capitals

Research Proposition 4: Inhibitors to the development of self-concept reduce the level of abilities and skill levels related to functional expertise.

The Impact of Group and Organizational Efficacy on Managers’ Self-Concept

In the previous sections, we have examined a manager’s self-concept based on his/her perceptions of his/her skills, although such perceptions provide a point of reference in determining one’s self-concept. Groups and organizations also provide feedback. Groups and organizations also influence the development of self-concept, which will change over time and may vary given the level of contact the individual has with each (Gross, 1984; Stalk, 1988; Stalk & Hout, 1990). Group behavior is a manifestation of group culture. A group’s culture may have a decidedly different orientation than that of expatriate managers (Kim & Slocum, 2008). For example, the group’s cultural orientation may be very tight (see Gelfand, Nishii, & Raver, 2006) with clear/unambiguous social norms, sanctions that are severe with strict discipline characterized by resistance to change. While at the same time the expatriate might have a more loose cultural perspective, where social norms lack formality, have a high tolerance for deviation, supportive attitude toward change, and a positive attitude toward change. Then, the individual and group norms are in a conflict state, and the expatriate manager’s self-concept can be slow to develop and reduce the manager’s effectiveness. Group culture can retard or accelerate the development of an effective global self-concept and can play an instrumental role in improving the effectiveness of the expatriate manager over time, leading to the following research proposition.

Research Proposition 5: Conflict between macro-cultural orientations (i.e., tight vs. loose) will have a negative impact on expatriate manager’s self-concept and in turn on his/her performance.

To encourage the development of self-efficacy in a group, it is necessary to identify and understand influential antecedents. The most significant antecedents of individual self-efficacy include the following: (a) Performance experiences on tasks in the group—building skills, knowledge, and processes for addressing similar problems in the future; (b) Vicarious experience—observational learning, modeling, and imitating others in the organization; (c) Imagined experience—the ability for some individuals to conceptualize and visualize an experience, commonly referred to as symbolic cognitive activity; (d) Verbal persuasion (social)—receiving positive cues from others who are experts and trustworthy; (e) Physiological state—the openness, willingness, and acceptance of an individual to the environment, whereby others can influence the level as well as rate of learning as a precursor to self-efficacy; and (f) Emotional state—moods that positively influence receptivity and learning (Griffith & Harvey, 2001; Ormrod, 2006). Each of these factors is important, and many of them can be shaped by the corporate culture of the organization and the manager’s group in particular (Jarnagin & Slocum, 2007), leading to the following research propositions.

Research Proposition 6: Improved self-concept is directly/indirectly affected by positive performance experience while on foreign assignment.

Research Proposition 7: Improved self-concept is directly/indirectly affected by observation of others in a “novel” environmental context of the foreign assignment.

Research Proposition 8: Improved self-concept is directly/indirectly affected by verbal interaction and persuasion with local nationals while on the foreign assignment.

Research Proposition 9: Improved self-concept is directly/indirectly affected by the level of receptivity of the expatriate manager while on the foreign assignment.

A Process to Support Cross-Cultural Competency Development

The following process (illustrated in Figure 4) provides an implementation “roadmap” for developing cross-cultural competencies of global managers.

Figure 4.

Step-by-step process for developing cross-cultural competencies

I. Initial Assessment of Potential Global Self-Concept

The first issue that must be addressed when selecting managers for overseas assignments is the potential global manager’s self-concept. Research has shown that individuals with high self-evaluations tend to be better performers (Judge, Erez, Bono, & Thoresen, 2002), are more satisfied with their work (Rode, 2004), are better able to recover from job loss (Wanberg, Glomb, Song, & Sorenson, 2005), and are happier in life (Judge, Erez, Bono, & Thoresen, 2003; Judge & Hurst, 2008). Given the complex tasks associated with international postings and the development of cross-cultural competencies, a strongly held self-concept would be essential to improve the likelihood of success in the global arena (Javidan & House, 2001).

Given the fact that the external environment may be very different from the manager’s home country environment, it is important to consider whether a manager’s self-concept is inner- or other-directed. When the international posting is to a country with a culture very different from one’s home culture, difficulties may arise if a global manager’s standard of reference is other-directed. When this is the case, the manager is likely to seek feedback from others who may have very different goals and expectations. This conflict may cause stress for the manager. When the international posting is to a country with a similar culture and similar expectations or when the global manager is inner-directed, cognitive dissonance and stress would mostly likely be reduced due to the lack of meaningful interaction with locals, leading to the following research proposition.

Research Propositions 10: The greater the divergence between the expatriate manager’s home and host countries, the greater the possibility for assignment failure.

II. Initial Assessment of Cross-Cultural Competencies of Potential Global Managers

The second issue that needs to be addressed when selecting managers for overseas assignments is the cross-cultural competencies profile. A profile of each candidate should be developed as a guide for hiring as well as for planning a developmental program for each overseas candidate. The execution of the development plan may take several years and could provide the basis for selecting among potential candidates for overseas assignments.

A profile based on a global manager’s knowledge of a particular country or area encompasses five categories: (a) material aspects (i.e., technology, economic development, available level of standard-of-living) of a society; (b) social institutions—educational, political, and religious; (c) aesthetic values in a society; (d) the official and unofficial languages of a culture; and (e) the cultural belief or philosophy of local groups of influence. To have a high social/cultural IQ, managers need to have insights into the foreign country’s culture/social context and how to “translate” or integrate the specific cues of that culture with the general frame in the home country of the headquarters of the organization.

The cultural and social discrepancy between two countries increases the stress experienced by managers responsible for the foreign culture market, resulting in difficulties to effectively manage strategy implementation in the foreign culture (Searle & Ward, 1990; Ward & Chang, 1997; Ward & Kennedy, 1993; Ward & Searle, 1991). To assess cultural/social IQ of a global manager, the following comparisons between the two cultures must be determined: (a) the degree of cultural variability or stability in each of the national cultures; (b) the level of cultural complexity (i.e., high vs. low content) of each culture; (c) cultural hostility—the degree to which conditions in the foreign culture are threatening to the individual (or organization’s culture) in terms of norms, goals, values, and the like; (d) the level of cultural heterogeneity or level of differences between the two cultures; and (e) the interdependence or sensitivity of one culture to changes or differences in the other culture. For an overview of personal assessment and development tools, see Landis, Bennett, and Bennett (2006).

The level of sociocultural adaptation a global manager has to make when relocating from the headquarter home country affects the rate and severity of adjustment for that individual in the respective subsidiary. When two countries are culturally distant, it is anticipated that sociocultural adjustment will be great and there will be a negative impact on the global manager’s performance (Ward & Kennedy, 1999). The more “hostile” the subsidiary culture is to the host country culture, the more the global cultural learning and social skills acquisition will be retarded (Berno & Ward, 1998; Ward & Kennedy, 1994). Therefore, the cultural impact on low social/cultural IQ global managers could directly impact their performance over an extended period of time, making them of less value for actions in the emerging country.

Global managers with high self-concept are those who understand how the organization functions and the role organizational culture plays in operation of the entity. An organization’s culture may vary across organizational units, and therefore, the internal culture of the foreign subsidiary can prove to be an impediment to those corporate managers who do not have tacit knowledge of how variations in the organizational culture operate. The commonly held overt behaviors that constitute the subsidiary-specific organizational culture are the following: (a) the language, customs, and traditions of the organization; (b) group norms; (c) the espoused values; (d) formal philosophy of the organization; (e) the rules (i.e., policies, procedures, and processes) by which the organization operates; (f) the climate or atmosphere (i.e., degree of formality among various groups within the organization); (g) embedded skills and core capabilities of the management and employees of the organization; (h) mental models or decision-making heuristics used by the organization as a whole and by individual groups within the organization; and (i) shared meanings, norms, and beliefs of the organizational culture (Schein, 1992). Differences between home country and host country cultures can be significant particularly when there is a high level of cultural distance between the two national cultures.

A global manager who understands the home country culture and has insights into the differences and similarities between the home and the host country culture can provide valuable insights to the top management team. As these managers have social knowledge (i.e., one’s ability to understand and predict the others’ general pattern of behavior) of both organizational units, foresight about the foreign subsidiary management’s decision making frame-of-reference can be derived (Frank, 1988, 1989). These high social IQ global managers can provide additional value, when the mechanism of social control is designed, by helping to predict the behavior of subsidiary employees and managers in emerging markets (Sohn, 1994; Tolbert, 1988).

III. Clustering of Cultures by Cultural Distance/Novelty

One of the key considerations in developing a program/process to increase global managers’ self-competencies is to ascertain what markets/countries the global managers are most likely to be relocated to by the organization. By determining the (dis)similarities within the likely set of host countries that the global manager will be relocated to, international human resource management can better assess the cultural distance/novelty the global manager will be exposed to during his/her global career. In addition, some estimates can be made on the sequences of the relocation and the individual duration of specific assignments. The level of cross-cultural competencies necessary can then be determined for each group of global managers (Kim & Slocum, 2008).

When selecting the set of host countries that the global manager might be relocated to, a consideration of the frame-of-reference of the global manager’s self-concept should be considered. Individuals with inner-directed self-concepts would not be likely to be negatively influenced by vastly dissimilar cultures because their standards tend to be internally set. Individuals with other-directed self-concepts might be better fit to similar cultures with similar standards of evaluation for success (e.g., United States–England, United States–Australia, United States–Canada). They might be more effective in tight cultures rather than those considered to be loose (Gelfand et al., 2006).

IV. Development of Organizational Support Packages for Global Managers

To effectively develop self-competencies, the support from the organization should be geared not only to the individual needs of the global manager but also to their immediate family. Research has shown that international reassignment effectiveness is heavily affected by the trailing spouse, leading to heightened stress and tension that may translate into an unpleasant work/family environment (Harvey, 1996; Takeuchi, Wang, & Marinova, 2005). In hopes of mitigating the adjustment process, the organization must therefore build the self-concepts of all family members involved, not just that of the global manager, through cross-cultural competency learning opportunities.

To effectively support the global manager and his/her family, there must be organizational components (i.e., formal organizational support packages) as well as support from individuals close to the global manager/family (i.e., informal personal support). An organizational support package for both the global manager and his/her family may comprise items that cover the following areas: (a) awareness training of the world view of one’s own home country as well as the host country, (b) assessment of the attitude toward cultural differences, and (c) targeted session to develop cultural competence in order to increase understanding of and/or interact with people in a particular culture (e.g., language training). The packages offered across the global manager pool need to be perceived as equitable among global managers and relative to resources extended by the organization. The global manager and family must sense the value of the support to help instill in them a commitment to the overseas assignment. As a result, these efforts exhibited by the organization allow for a smoother transition and therefore a greater chance for short-term as well as long-term organizational success. The individuals who have stronger self-concepts will have less need for inclusive expatriate support packages than novices on their initial overseas assignments.

V. Development of Cultural Training/Exposure for Global Managers

Training techniques that are frequently used in a cross-cultural context are the following: (a) Informational background/facts (e.g., economic, cultural, history, level of economic development, etc.) on the country/countries that are included in the global managers’ assignment. There are a number of sources (e.g., United Nations, U.S. CIA fact book, the World Bank, OCED, national banks, Transparency International, just to name a few) that can be used to collect this factual information. (b) Attribution training that focuses on the behavior of the host country nationals to gain an understanding of the cognitive standards by which the host nationals process behavioral input. This would develop an understanding of adaptation in the global manager’s behavior to effectively interact with host country nationals on a personal level. (c) Cultural awareness training that studies the values, attitudes, and behaviors of host country nationals to gain insight into the cultural mosaic of the host country. This training frequently will have an in-country component to immerse the global manager in a culture to provide him/her with a more realistic culture preview. (d) Cognitive-behavior modification training is used to develop means of illustrating what is rewarded/punished in the global manager’s own culture and to compare these outcomes with what is expected in the host country. This examination of motivation is essential for the global manager to adjust to the expectations of the host country culture. (e) Cultural simulations and interaction training will provide the global manager with the ability to make decisions in a simulated environment to gain insights into the decision-making processes and how they could/will be interpreted in the host country.

VI. Short-Term Experiential Cultural Emersion

Given the history of perceived failures of global managers, global organizations are taking the time to invest in sending global managers and their families to potential assignment locations 2 to 3 years in advance of the actual assignment. This realistic cultural preview provides insights to the manager/family that helps illustrate their level of cross-cultural competencies and hopefully provides the motivation to return home and redouble their efforts relative to learning more.

VII. Monitoring/Auditing Self-Concept and Cross-Cultural Competency Development by Global Managers

One of the hallmarks of an effective human resource management program is to establish a process program ex ante for managers/employees to assess their cross-cultural competencies. In an effort to provide due process for those developing their cross-cultural competencies in organizations, the following steps should be formally introduced as standard operating procedure: (a) provision for forewarning managers about the organizations policies on assessing/developing/maintaining their cross-cultural skills portfolio, (b) the process for review of ongoing competency training and retraining, (c) the mechanism for reviewing conversion of skills into competencies, (d) establishing a standardized review process for skill development by global managers, and (e) development of an auditing/review process open to managers to expand their cross-cultural competencies skills base at each stage of training.

To help ensure a continued due diligence on the part of employees and management throughout the global network of operating units, a formalized human resource management auditing process should be developed. This would move the assessment of cross-cultural skills development from an ad hoc (case-by-case) system into a fully integrated management standard operating procedure. Once again, this may help elevate the awareness and interest in creating a work environment that encourages ongoing training/learning relative to cross-cultural skills. By instilling the process of assessing the value of cross-cultural skills across the system, employees/managers cannot turn a “blind-eye” or “deaf-ear” to everyone’s need to actively participate in cross-cultural competencies.

Summary/Conclusion

The future of global business may rest on finding and developing an adequate number of qualified global managers to lead the growth of global organizations in the more complex environments of emerging markets. The gage of these managers will shift to externally focused capabilities (i.e., those of anticipatory cultural awareness and evolved relational skills to develop, maintain, and build relationships with an array of external institutions and stakeholder in host countries). The resulting market-based architecture of (cultural) knowledge will thus become the one of the ultimate values in a global organization. The article fundamentally proposes that the idea of self-concept aids in facilitating a global manager’s awareness of the learning complexities involved in cross-cultural competencies.

With the shift in emphasis on management processes opposed to purely functional expertise, the establishment of cross-cultural competencies is an irreplaceable managerial attribute sought after in global managers in the 21st century. This article draws on ideas of self-concept to form the basis for self-evaluation and the development of a composite self-concept. The rationale being that without an understanding of one’s identity, it is difficult to imagine learning the complexities of cross-cultural competencies. An individual’s cultural adaptability and strength to face the inevitable psychological phenomenon better known as culture shock play a vital role in an individual’s attempt to counteract the inevitable feelings of confusion, self-doubt, and decreased self-esteem from working in a new and unfamiliar setting. The self-concept of an individual is built up over time and requires a multilevel analysis to fully understand its impact on learning and addressing complex tasks such as cross-cultural competencies.

An individual’s self-concept can be described using four characteristics: the level (i.e., high/low) of belief, strength (i.e., weak/strong), frame of reference (i.e., inner directed/other directed), and type of standard (i.e., fixed/ordinal), whereby the key consideration in determining one’s composite self-concept is the consistency of the cues from the individual’s reference points (i.e., the individual, group, and organization). Furthermore, either the global managers’ own expectations and/or the expectations of their reference group are responsible for constructing the ideal self. The fulfillment of these expectations are then dependent on the processes of goal-setting and feedback-seeking behavior, self-assessment and interpretation of feedback, as well as the resulting behavior or lack of behavior. This implies that the proposed dyadic relationship between goal-setting and feedback-seeking behavior can simultaneously measure feedback and/or performance goals against either the individual itself or others (i.e., a reference group).

The consideration of a global manager’s self-concept provides a richer basis for assessment of the potential ability to develop cross-cultural competencies. An awareness of and effort to improve manager’s composite self-concept may provide better candidate assessment and more successful foreign assignment outcomes. Essentially, a shift of an organization’s mindfulness has to occur in that attempts at unifying home and host organizations are insufficient unless organizations put forth efforts to create an awareness of host countries’ cultural sensitivities. Instilling cultural awareness in global managers could possibly be the difference between success and failure of a foreign assignment. In conclusion, a global executive adds to an organization’s viability by not only understanding the field of human relations as is but also by taking one step further and acknowledging the need for resilient and resourceful ways to deal with the complexities of cultural sensitivities.

Footnotes

The authors would like to thank John Slocum for his invaluable suggestions and assistance in the final stages of developing this article.

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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