Developing Global Business Leaders : Policies, Processes, and Innovations

The widening gap between the requirements of multinational organizations and the strategic and managerial abilities of their leaders, many of whose core experiences predated the globalization of business, has created the need for this book. Editors Mark E. Mendenhall, Torsten M. Kühlmann, and Günter K. Stahl have organized the results of their research―and that of their colleagues in the fields of leadership development, international management, and organizational psychology―for the benefit of scholars and practitioners alike. After surveying current practices to bring the reader up to speed on global leadership development as pursued by the United States, Germany, Japan, and with regard to women in leadership positions, the book's focus shifts to a discussion of effective organizational processes. In the third and final section, contributors analyze the research that has been done on extending human resource management functional practices―such as selection instrumentation, the use of assessment centers, multinational work groups, cross-cultural training programs, and repatriation policies―to global leadership development.

The editors define and analyze global leadership and, in their review of the research, clarify exactly what we know and don't know about developing global leadership skills and what it might be profitable to learn. Practitioners will benefit from the contributors well-grounded insights into such issues as the key distinctions between global and domestic corporations, which dimensions of competency transcend internal corporate leadership dimensions, and how global leadership competencies should be developed.

MARK E. MENDENHALL is J. Burton Frierson Chair of Excellence in Business Leadership at the School of Business, University of Tennessee, Chattanooga. He has taught courses in leadership, international human resource management, and Japanese management. A former chair of the International Management Division of the Academy of Management, he was also a charter fellow of the International Academy for Intercultural Research.

TORSTEN M. KÜHLMANN is Chair of Human Resource Management at the University of Bayreuth. He serves as a reviewer of Ergonomics, Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, Zeitschrift für Arbeits- und Organisationspsychologie, and Journal of Applied Psychology. A member of several advisory committees, he also belongs to the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Psychologie.

GÜNTER K. STAHL is Assistant Professor of Human Resource Management and Leadership at the University of Bayreuth, Germany. He has published books and articles in the field of leadership development, cross-cultural management, and international human resource management, in particular the management of expatriates. He has conducted research projects in Japan and the United States, and his current research interests include careers in multinational corporations, trust within and between organizations, and integration processes in mergers and acquisitions. He has also done consulting work for various organizations, including DaimlerChrysler, Siemens, and Lufthansa.