個案總覽

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. Many international business leaders consider a global mind-set desirable, but few know how to embed it companywide. A corporate global mind-set differs from having a few managers think globally. That comes first. But global thinking must be incorporated into an organization's processes so that everyone knows how to handle the tug-of-war between local responsiveness and corporate efficiency. Two Northeastern University professors studied global companies and found that inculcating a corporate global mind-set lagged behind the will to do so. IBM made the most progress. Having originally overemphasized global consistency, it learned to embrace a more flexible approach, adopting global policy development teams, worldwide knowledge networks, and appropriate performance measures. Unfortunately, many American executives regard globalization as pursuing standardized products through centralized decision making. In favoring global consistency, they often fail to secure local cooperation. Through a global mind-set, corporate decision-making processes become more permeable to influences from beyond the home country. The authors show how managers can determine when an issue calls for a locally adaptive response, when it calls for a globally consistent response, and when both elements are needed. The corporate global mind-set is a requirement for motivating a diverse and sprawling work force and giving it a common purpose.

More and more, the task of the HR department is one of identifying and articulating primary strategic values of the corporate culture. As an example, Texas Instruments shelved its cumbersome approach to updating HR policy and switched to a system that allowed the rapid response needed in a fast-changing environment. In companies with a strongly articulated value-based culture, the challenge is to apply that culture to the formulation of specific HR policies. Doing so requires that HR policies be examined for relevance to the current business environment, connection to strategic goals, adaptability to changing circumstances, applicability across the firm's theater of operations, familiarity to employees, ease of interpretation and application, specification of the bounds of acceptable employee behavior, and extent of commitment to policies by employees. The process of designing HR policies in a value-based culture is illustrated by the experiences of Texas Instruments, Bell Atlantic, and Unisys.