Morgan W. McCall

Early identification of international executive potential

This research extends the traditional approach to the early identification of executives by introducing the notion of ability to learn from experience. Drawing on the literature, the researchers created a reliable measurement tool named Prospector for rating the potential of aspiring international executives in terms of both end-state competencies and the ability to learn from experience. The 14 dimensions derived from the Prospector instrument are Sensitive to Cultural Differences, Business Knowledge, Courage, Brings Out the Best in People, Integrity, Insightful, Committed, Takes Risks, Seeks Feedback, Uses Feedback, Is Culturally Adventurous, Seeks Learning Opportunities, Open to Criticism, and Flexibility. The research also began to assess the validity of the Prospector dimensions in terms of current performance, executive potential, on-the-job learning, and international criteria on 838 lower, middle-, and senior-level managers from 6 international firms and 21 countries. The findings suggest that Prospector may have promise for use in the early identification of international executives.

Developing Executives Through Work Experiences

Executive development, often thought of solely in terms of educational programs, actually occurs primarily through on-the-job experiences. Surprisingly little research exists, however, on the kinds of experiences that make a difference, or what difference they make. This paper summarizes a series of studies of successful, high potential executives that addressed these issues. It describes 16 developmental experiences, the elements that made them developmental, and the lessons executives said they learned from them. Making better use of experience is a significant challenge for organizations that are serious about the development of executive talent.

COMPETENCE, NOT COMPETENCIES: MAKING GLOBAL EXECUTIVE DEVELOPMENT WORK

As we begin the 21st century, evidence abounds that executive and leadership development has failed to meet expectations. Unless we change our assumptions and think differently about executives and the development process, we will continue to find too few executives to carry out corporate strategies, and the competence of those executives available will be too often open to question. The “competency model” of the executive, proposing as it does a single set of competencies that account for success, must be supplemented with a development model based on leadership challenges rather than executive traits and competencies. Executive performance must focus on “what gets done” rather than on one way of doing it or on what competencies executives have. In turn, executive development must be viewed as meeting performance challenges essential to the business strategy rather than attending development programs, with senior executives making development decisions much as they make business decisions today.

High School Students' Perceptions of Work

A number of studies have been concerned with the relationship between job attitudes and such demographic variables as race, sex, and social class background (Kohn, 1969; Saleh and Singh, 1973). Most of these studies, focused on adult employees, have found low but significant relationships. For example, members of different social classes and races have been shown to value rewards differently. It is difficult, however, to determine why these differences exist. They could be a direct result of the different kinds of job experiences the groups encounter, but they could also be due, at least in part, to experiences which predate adult employment. It may be, for example, that blacks start work with a set of values and expectations different from those of whites and that this partially accounts for the differences in job attitudes. Studies of adults also have shown that the type of work individuals do bears a relationship to their intrinsic motivation, orientation toward work, higher order need satisfaction, and work centrality (Blauner, 1964; Kornhauser, 1965; Vroom, 1964). One interpretation of these studies is that the nature of the work causes these psychological reactions. However, there is some evidence to indicate that man-job effects are reciprocal over time (Kohn and Schooler, 1973) and that individuals may enter repetitive jobs because of attitudes that are developed during their childhood

What Makes a Successful Global Executive

Even organizations with long histories and considerable success in staffing their global businesses often feel their strategies for executive development are inadequate. This article, based on an in-depth study of successful global executives,seeks to identify the best ways of developing their talent - arguing that they are made, not born. The authors found that the underlying development processes are the same for global as for domestic executives, but that the experiences they need and the lessons they must learn are very different. The article discusses these and what both the organizations and the executives themselves must do to make it all happen.