No such thing as a global manager -- Yehuda Baruch

Author : Yehuda Baruch

a specialist of Management. He is an academic, a university professor and a researcher, but he also has practical experience as a manager

What is the source of the text?

Business Horizons = the publication of an American Business school, Kelly School of Business at Indiana University.

It is published twice a month. It is a peer-reviewed journal, which means that articles are reviewed by other researchers through an anonymous process before they get published.

As its name suggests, it is centred mainly on business issues, and its approach is a compromise between the practical and the academic.

What is the title of the text? What can you guess from it about the author’s thesis?

“No such thing as a global manager” → the author rejects the concept of “global manager” Baruch is countering a claim that has been made previously by other specialists

What is the author’s point of view? Does he seem to be in agreement with other specialists?

The author disagrees with the specialists who have come up with the concept of “global manager”. He thinks it is impossible to define such a concept, because it is impossible to pinpoint a specific set of characteristics that would make a “global manager”.

According to the text, what is the difference between “expatriates” and “travelling managers”?

Expatriates = workers who leave their home country to go and settle abroad with their family for an extended period of time

Travelling managers = workers who still live in their home country but are required to go abroad regularly for their job

What are demographic characteristics, and which ones are relevant to the ideal profile of a so-called global manager?

income, ethnicity, marital status. In this text, the author identifies age, gender, marital status and nationality as relevant.

demographics characterstics

Age → said to work both ways, on the one hand young people might like the novelty and change of living abroad, but experience and seniority are also assets that would favour older candidates.

Gender → statistically male managers are a lot more likely to work abroad, because female managers tend to be less prone to relocate, and can also face sexist prejudices coming from within the company or from the host culture

What are demographic characteristics, and which ones are relevant to the ideal profile of a socalled global manager?

Marital status → single people are less likely to be held back by their family but they would lack the stability and comfort of having their relatives close by while abroad. Married people would be more stable, but probably less willing to go live abroad, especially if it means that their partner has to quit their job.

Nationality → Nationality seems to play a part, with American expatriates not doing as well as Europeans, Japanese and third country nationals (= expatriates whose home country is neither the company’s nor that of the assignment).

What are individual characteristics and which ones are relevant to the ideal profile of a socalled global manager?

Individual characteristics would be features specific to a particular person, like personality traits. Personality → Big Five concept (Goldberg, 1990) → derived from psychology trait theory:

These traits are all associated to performance and it is unclear whether they would be relevant for global managers, except for Openness to experience.

What is “social loafing” and in what is the major difference between countries observed by researchers?

Social loafing = making less effort when part of a group = relying on the collective to act and taking it easy

In Western countries with a strong individualistic culture, like the US, social loafing can be a problem; but in collectivist nations like China where individuals are used to think collectively and cooperate, no such phenomenon can be observed.

What is the “push-pull model” developed by Baruch and referred to at the bottom left column of p.40? What is the most significant aspect of the model?

It means that individuals are going to be influenced by factors motivating them to work in a particular country (pull factors, attractive factors pulling them towards the new country) or on the contrary deterred from working there (push factors, repelling factors pushing them away from the country).

What are the leads suggested by the author to companies seeking to recruit successful global managers? And to other researchers working on the field?

Suggested leads for companies → stop looking for a perfect recipe to make a global manager and turn to good managers with the right frame of mind (motivated, respectful, open and aware of cultural differences) Suggested leads for researchers → focusing on what can be done to endow people with the right mindset