Milorad M. Novicevic

Selecting expatriates for increasingly complex global assignments

As organizations globalize their operations, there is a heightened need to identify and select qualified managers for overseas assignments. The increased complexity of these foreign assignments necessitates a recalibration of the traditional selection procedures and processes used in the past. In particular, there is some evidence that expatriation becomes strategic as organizations increasingly grow and compete globally. Therefore, the critical issues, which arise as expatriates’ assignments evolve into a global assignment scope, must be viewed in a systematic manner. This paper develops a unique theory‐based expatriation selection process based upon a systemic assessment of potential expatriate candidates’ multiple IQs, learning styles, thinking styles, and the nature of the expatriate assignment. In addition, a practical step‐by‐step managerial process is developed that can be used in the selection of expatriate managers for global assignments.

Awareness of temporal complexity in leadership of creativity and innovation: A competency-based model

Abstract Time has become an integral part of our understanding of the context of organizations, particularly as the pace of change in business models continues to mirror the relatively fast evolution of technology. The importance of time is particularly magnified in the social context of organizational creativity, as innovation has become the key strategic orientation of organizations attempting to achieve a sustained competitive advantage in todays knowledge-rich and hypercompetitive global environment. This paper integrates research on social aspects of time, leadership, and innovation into a competency-based model. We suggest that awareness of temporal complexity dimensions has a significant impact on the leader competency set that is critical to lead people effectively in innovation-focused projects.

The hypercompetitive global marketplace: the importance of intuition and creativity in expatriate managers

The value of expatriate managers has always been predicated to a degree on the nature of complexity of the overseas assignment and the external environment. There are two emerging and interrelated processes of environmental change occurring that could have a direct impact on the selection of expatriate managers, those being, the globalization of businesses and the resulting hypercompetitive nature of global markets. Due to the rapid rate of globalization, organizations have recognized that the global managers need different skills than their predecessors who manned multinational corporations. In addition, the hypercompetitiveness of the marketplace has placed managers under a new time perspective that tends to overshadow other managerial constraints. Therefore, two additional dimensions (i.e., intuition and creativity) are examined as being useful in the selection of expatriate managers in global organizations. This paper assesses the value of examining potential expatriate candidates on the creative and intuitional intelligences, in that it is anticipated that these two abilities will become of inordinate importance in the global hypercompetitive marketplace.

“Playing by ear” . . . “in an incessant din of reasons”: Chester Barnard and the history of intuition in management thought

In the closing decades of the twentieth, and at the start of the twenty‐first, centuries, attention has again turned to the critical role of intuition in effective managerial decision making. This paper examines the history of intuition in management thought by tracing its origins to Chester I. Barnard. This paper reveals not only the intellectual roots linking Barnard’s conceptualization of intuition in management thought to, among others, the influential works of the economist and sociologist, Vilfredo Pareto; Lawrence Henderson’s influence on Barnard through Henderson’s leadership and direction of the Harvard Pareto Circle; the works of the early pragmatist John Dewey; Humphrey’s The Nature of Learning; and Koffka’s Principles of Gestalt Psychology. Further, Barnard’s conceptualization of intuition foreshadowed by nearly two decades nearly all of Polanyi’s thinking and elaboration of tacit knowledge. This paper also examines Barnard’s and Simon’s differing views on intuition and provides a brief overview of contemporary research on intuition in managerial decision making.

A historic perspective on organizational ignorance

Attempts to document how different forms of ignorance may evolve in different organizational dialogues and become embedded in organizational context. Develops the four primary forms of ignorance based on the research from social psychology, public opinion studies, legal studies, behavioral economics, and clinical psychology. The recognition of the historic interdisciplinary evolution of the concept of ignorance plays an important role in the knowledge economy and learning organizations. If management is not aware of the various latent forms of organizational ignorance, it is difficult to develop meaningful innovation programs for organizations in the twenty‐first century. Develops a framework to address the issue of “not knowing what one does not know” (i.e. ignorance of ignorance) that may be the biggest barrier for organizations to becoming an active participant in the knowledge economy.

The impact of hypercompetitive “timescapes” on the development of a global mindset

Many managers are experiencing a “quickening” of their decision‐making processes. The globalization of business, the advances in communications technology and increasing demand for prompt data analysis and interpretation have been the primary drivers on the impact of time for decision making. Modifications in the timeline of decision makers affect the development of a corporate global mindset in a complex manner. This leaves top managers groping for a meaningful decision‐making framework that provides rationale to justify their choices under time pressure. In this article, a decisional framework based on the notion of social time or “timescape” is developed. The construct of timescape is captured by seven dimensions: time frame, tempo, temporality, (a)synchronization, sequence, emerging pauses/gaps and simultaneity. Each is examined in a global environment. Within the proposed framework, decision rules are developed relative to the flexibility and responsiveness of managers’ decisions.

Development of multiple IQ maps for use in the selection of inpatriate managers: a practical theory

The rate of expansion into the global marketplace by multinational corporations has begun to accelerate at a pace where international human resource managers are unable to meet the demand for managers to serve in global assignments. This shortage of qualified managers is exacerbated by a number of societal trends, such as, dual-career professional couples, increased number of high qualified female executives who have not been used extensively in international assignments in the past, and the changing format and sequencing of the overseas assignments beyond the traditional single 3–5 year assignment term. The complexity of global management tasks is increasing requiring multi-talented managers capable of acting as knowledge-integrating boundary-spanners in global network organizations. Inpatriate managers (i.e., host-/third-country nationals relocated to the home organization on a semi-permanent to permanent basis) have been identified as a potential pool of global managers to complement the supply of expatriates for emerging markets. This paper develops a means for selectinginpatriate manag ers based on a multiple IQ approach that attempts to match the inpatriate managers’ portfolio of abilities with the type of assignments that they might have in global organizations. r 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Selecting marketing managers to effectively control global channels of distribution

Globalization of organizations necessitates the development of a network organizational configuration. This new form of organization requires managers to become boundary spanners between the various organizations aligned in the global business network. The question becomes how are these boundary‐spanning managers going to be identified and selected for global assignments. This paper examines the staffing options for marketing managers of integrative (i.e. relational) and market (i.e. transactional) modes of norm‐based control of global channels of distribution. Both transaction cost analysis and focus theory are used to identify which control mechanism would be most appropriate for each inter‐organizational situation.

The Evolution of Strategic Human Resource Systems and their Application in a Foreign Subsidiary Context

Firms internationalizing their operations have always been challenged to select, develop, and implement a sufficient amount of foreign subsidiary manager talent. This challenge is exacerbated in todays global environment involving an increasing emphasis on transnational internationalization strategies and growing business opportunities in emerging markets. Successfully identifying and developing these managers is essential for a firm implementing a internationalization strategy, and necessitates the creation of effective high performance work systems practices that can lead to the development of a strategic international human resource system. This article integrates agency and organizational capabilities theory to better understand how human resource systems can be created to develop highly effective foreign subsidiary managers who can implement selected internationalization strategies. More specifically, foreign subsidiary manager capabilities are identified contingent upon the internationalization strategy resulting in an examination of different human resource practices that could be bundled together to develop foreign subsidiary manager talent.

Staffing marketing positions during global hyper-competitiveness: A market-based perspective

As organizations globalize their operations, there appears to be an imperceptible shift in focus from internal tangible resources to those of external intangible relational resources; in other words, economies of scale appear to being replaced by economies of global scope. The strategic implications of this swing in the importance of resource bases can also have a significant impact on the international human resource management area. Identifying managers with local market knowledge and contacts becomes a critical consideration in the selection process. Maintaining on-going personal relations in foreign markets also helps to cement inter-organizational relationships such as strategic alliances. In the ‘think global, act local’ relational networks of global business, inpatriate managers appear to have the necessary characteristics of both organizational trust and local tacit knowledge to be effective global managers.