Globalization & Hr
Executive Summary
During the past decade, a catchy paradigm or slogan, "Think globally, act locally," has often been used to capture the concept of a progressive change in a global corporation that considers the whole world as its market but at the same time carefully evaluates and adapts to local priorities and requirements. However, for many firms, implementing this concept or vision has turned out to be a long and difficult process, causing not only unexpected and unintended side-effects causing many to cease competing effectively.
To take an example, suppose a situation where an employee based from Bangalore is negotiating for an alteration in his compensation package due to change in rental prices in his locality from an HR head based from the organization’s headquarters in Seattle. The challenges apart from the usual semantic one’s. to manage such an organization with offices or departments spread throughout the globe, would be tough if not impossible.
Why is this idea so difficult to implement when theoretically it’s logic is so apparent? In a global firm that used this popular slogan on the first page of its annual report, one local HR manager commented on its application in practice: "Our firm is organized on a simple premise. When operating under stress, and that is most of the time, they do the thinking, and we do the acting." In other words, the global thinking and local acting became two separate roles. The headquarters launches the global initiatives, which the subsidiaries are simply asked to implement within local constraints.
What drives this dichotomy is the misguided view of what does it mean to be “global”. In their passion to promote global mind-set, academics and others writing from a normative perspective sometimes tend to see global or cosmopolitan as superior to local, calling for a "universal way that transcends the particulars of places." What is "local" is seen as parochial and narrow-minded.
A truly global mind-set requires an
During the past decade, a catchy paradigm or slogan, "Think globally, act locally," has often been used to capture the concept of a progressive change in a global corporation that considers the whole world as its market but at the same time carefully evaluates and adapts to local priorities and requirements. However, for many firms, implementing this concept or vision has turned out to be a long and difficult process, causing not only unexpected and unintended side-effects causing many to cease competing effectively.
To take an example, suppose a situation where an employee based from Bangalore is negotiating for an alteration in his compensation package due to change in rental prices in his locality from an HR head based from the organization’s headquarters in Seattle. The challenges apart from the usual semantic one’s. to manage such an organization with offices or departments spread throughout the globe, would be tough if not impossible.
Why is this idea so difficult to implement when theoretically it’s logic is so apparent? In a global firm that used this popular slogan on the first page of its annual report, one local HR manager commented on its application in practice: "Our firm is organized on a simple premise. When operating under stress, and that is most of the time, they do the thinking, and we do the acting." In other words, the global thinking and local acting became two separate roles. The headquarters launches the global initiatives, which the subsidiaries are simply asked to implement within local constraints.
What drives this dichotomy is the misguided view of what does it mean to be “global”. In their passion to promote global mind-set, academics and others writing from a normative perspective sometimes tend to see global or cosmopolitan as superior to local, calling for a "universal way that transcends the particulars of places." What is "local" is seen as parochial and narrow-minded.
A truly global mind-set requires an