NSU Strategic Thinking Competency & Strategic Thinking Competency Discussion “Strategic thinking competency refers to the knowledge, skills and abilities l

NSU Strategic Thinking Competency & Strategic Thinking Competency Discussion “Strategic thinking competency refers to the knowledge, skills and abilities leaders need to formulate value-creating strategic goals and strategies” (Dragoni, Oh, VanKatwyk, & Tesluk, 2011). (Cited in Dragoni, et al., 2014). They stress the need for global leaders who can think strategically in terms of goals and strategy that will help create a competitive advantage. In addition, they report that scholars in the strategic management area suggest . . “.that executives’ international experience shapes how they view and respond to their firms’ competitive landscape–in essence their strategic thinking competency. . . .” (p. 2). The article is attached to this discussion and is required for this discussion topic.Discuss the relationship between international experience and strategic thinking competency, and describe the importance of international experience for HR managers and for employees’ interactions and relationships at work.Please include citations and references in all postings See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/268812739
Developing Leaders’ Strategic Thinking Through Global Work Experience: The
Moderating Role of Cultural Distance
Article in Journal of Applied Psychology · September 2014
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Journal of Applied Psychology
2014, Vol. 99, No. 5, 867– 882
© 2014 American Psychological Association
0021-9010/14/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0036628
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This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
Developing Leaders’ Strategic Thinking Through Global Work Experience:
The Moderating Role of Cultural Distance
Lisa Dragoni
In-Sue Oh
Cornell University
Temple University
Paul E. Tesluk
Ozias A. Moore
University at Buffalo, State University of New York
Cornell University
Paul VanKatwyk
Joy Hazucha
Korn Ferry, Chicago, Illinois
Korn Ferry, Minneapolis, Minnesota
To respond to the challenge of how organizations can develop leaders who can think strategically, we
investigate the relation of leaders’ global work experiences—that is, those experiences that require the
role incumbent to transcend national boundaries—to their competency in strategic thinking. We further
examine whether leaders’ exposure to a country whose culture is quite distinct from the culture of their
own country (i.e., one that is culturally distant) moderates these relationships. Our analyses of 231 upper
level leaders reveals that the time they have spent in global work experiences positively relates to their
strategic thinking competency, particularly for leaders who have had exposure to a more culturally distant
country. We discuss these findings in light of the research on international work experiences and leader
development.
Keywords: leader development, global work experiences, international assignment, cultural distance
2013). Some conclude that one impetus driving this shortage of
globally savvy leaders is the lack of international experience
among senior and potential leaders (Ernst & Young, 2012b).
In addressing this dilemma, it is useful to consider whether
international experiences actually cultivate a competency in strategic thinking among organizational leaders, particularly those
who are poised to rise to the senior ranks. Strategic thinking
competency refers to the knowledge, skills, and abilities leaders
need to formulate value-creating strategic goals and strategies
(Dragoni, Oh, VanKatwyk, & Tesluk, 2011). While it has been
intimated that work experiences that require leaders to work across
national boundaries—that is, global work experiences—impact
leaders’ competency in strategic thinking (e.g., Black, Morrison, &
Gregersen, 1999; Gupta & Govindarajan, 2002), this linkage has
not been definitely established. International work experience research predominantly focuses on the experience of being sent
overseas for an expatriate assignment. Limited insight exists into
other forms of global work experience even though these forms are
growing in prevalence (Shaffer, Kraimer, Chen, & Bolino, 2012).
Further, research in this area largely centers on the adjustment of
expatriates rather than the competency development that may
result from this experience (e.g., Bhaskar-Shrinivas, Harrison,
Shaffer, & Luk, 2005; Black, Mendenhall, & Oddou, 1991).
Leader development scholars have either examined the implications of broad conceptualizations of developmental experiences,
thus obfuscating the more specific impact of global work experiences (e.g., DeRue & Wellman, 2009; Dong, Seo, & Bartol, 2013),
or opted to mainly provide practical advice to executives rather
The rapid development of today’s global economy has critical
implications for leadership development. Significant growth has
occurred in the emerging markets, and in 2011, 70% of the Fortune
Global 500’s (2011) fastest growing companies were from emerging market countries, marking a sixfold increase since 2000 (Accenture, 2012). Trends such as these have significantly altered the
labor market for leadership talent. A number of recent reports by
the Corporate Executive Board (2012), Ernst & Young (2012a),
Deloitte Consulting (2013), and ManpowerGroup (2012) all arrive
at the same conclusion: There is a shortage of leaders who can
effectively operate in this more global environment. Less than one
third of large businesses report that their leaders possess an adequate global perspective to achieve their strategic goals, and the
majority of firms surveyed believe their pool of current and potential senior leaders is steadily weakening (Deloitte Consulting,
This article was published Online First April 28, 2014.
Lisa Dragoni, Department of Human Resource Studies, ILR School,
Cornell University; In-Sue Oh, Department of Human Resource Management, Fox School of Business, Temple University; Paul E. Tesluk, Department of Organization and Human Resources, School of Management,
University at Buffalo, State University of New York; Ozias A. Moore,
Department of Human Resource Studies, ILR School, Cornell University;
Paul VanKatwyk, Korn Ferry, Chicago, Illinois; Joy Hazucha, Korn Ferry,
Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Lisa
Dragoni, Department of Human Resource Studies, Cornell University, 164
Ives Hall, Ithaca, NY 14853-3901. E-mail: ld284@cornell.edu
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This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
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DRAGONI, OH, TESLUK, MOORE, VANKATWYK, AND HAZUCHA
than tackle critical conceptual issues or generate empirical evidence (Beechler & Javidan, 2007). Finally, scholars in the strategic
management area suggest (but do not directly test) that executives’
international experience, broadly defined, shapes how they view
and respond to their firms’ competitive landscape—in essence,
their strategic thinking competency (e.g., Carpenter, Sanders, &
Gregersen, 2001).
And, yet, an empirical study simply relating a range of leaders’
global work experiences to their strategic thinking competency
would ignore a critical reality in leader development: Not all
leaders benefit equally from experience (e.g., Spreitzer, McCall, &
Mahoney, 1997). While various factors contribute to differences in
learning from experience, most of the research has concentrated on
individual characteristics such as leaders’ learning goal orientation
(e.g., Dragoni, Tesluk, Russell, & Oh, 2009). A promising, yet
understudied possibility is that the qualitative nature of leaders’
experience also determines their ability to translate experience into
competency gains—a logical inference given that development
accrues from the combination of multiple experiences (e.g., Avery,
Tonidandel, Griffith, & Quiñones, 2003; Yip & Wilson, 2010).
Building from the research on work experience (e.g., Tesluk &
Jacobs, 1998), expertise at work (Sonnentag, 2000), and expatriate
adjustment (e.g., Black et al., 1991), we focus on leaders’ exposure
to culturally distant countries as one critical, qualitative differentiator of their international experiences. Cultural distance refers to
the extent of novelty or difference between the leader’s own
national culture and the cultures of other countries he or she has
encountered (e.g., Black et al., 1991). Exposure to cultural distance
is believed to facilitate the development of more sophisticated
cognitive schemas (e.g., Gupta & Govindarajan, 2002), which, we
argue, enable leaders to view and process their global work experiences differently for enhanced developmental benefit. While
considered a critical feature of experience (e.g., Black et al., 1991),
extant research offers little insight into whether exposure to cultural distance facilitates leaders’ ability to translate specific global
work experiences into higher levels of leadership competencies.
Accordingly, we have two objectives in the current study. First,
we investigate the relationship of the cumulative time leaders have
spent in four types of global work experiences to their strategic
thinking competency. Because they have been highlighted in previous research, we focus on (a) international assignment experience (e.g., McCall & Hollenbeck, 2002), (b) multinational business operations experience (e.g., Dalton & Ernst, 2004), (c)
multicultural team experience (e.g., Black et al., 1999), and (d)
experience in building relationships with culturally diverse others
(e.g., Caligiuri & Tarique, 2009). Second, we examine the extent
to which leaders’ exposure to a culturally distant country helps
them better leverage the time invested in these global work experiences to achieve higher levels of strategic thinking competency.
This approach results in greater precision and elaboration in our
collective understanding of leaders’ development via global work
experiences. Here we more precisely match specific types of
developmental experiences to more refined indicators of leader
development to achieve a clearer understanding of which experiences facilitate certain forms of competency gains. This level of
precision complements existing empirical work on broader conceptualizations of experience and leader development (e.g., DeRue
& Wellman, 2009; Dragoni et al., 2009). In addition, we augment
the predictor and criterion space in the international work experi-
ence literature to examine the relation of a broader set of global
work experiences beyond expatriation to one specific indicator of
leader development. In doing so, we expand the implications of
expatriate assignments and derive empirically based insights about
other prevalent forms of global work experience. Finally, our
inclusion of leaders’ exposure to cultural distance as a potential
qualifier enables us to determine why some leaders benefit more
than others from their time spent in global work experiences, thus
extending research on leader development, global leader development, and international work experience.
Types of Global Work Experience
Scholars dating back to the late 1990s (e.g., Black et al., 1999)
and even more recently (e.g., Caligiuri & Tarique, 2009) have
recognized the multitude and diverse types of global work experiences. Building on Shaffer et al.’s (2012) review, we define
global work experiences as those events or activities that require
the role incumbent to physically or psychologically transcend
national boundaries. Thus, the distinguishing feature of these experiences is that they involve crossing national and cultural boundaries. By “physically transcend national boundaries,” we mean
experiences that involve working in another country such as traditional expatriate assignments, a short-term international assignments (e.g., Tahvanainen, Welch, & Worm, 2005), or international
business travel (e.g., Gregersen, Morrison, & Black, 1998). Psychological transcendence occurs when role incumbents remain in
their home country but must consider how to appropriately behave
and effectively accomplish their work in one or more foreign
countries (Shaffer et al., 2012). Leaders experience psychological
transcendence when they participate in a globally dispersed or
multicultural team (e.g., Gregersen et al., 1998), build a working
relationship with someone from another culture (e.g., Caligiuri &
Tarique, 2009, 2012), or work as a global domestic—an individual
stationed domestically but who has responsibilities for operations
outside his or her home country (e.g., Shaffer et al., 2012).
Global work experiences introduce leaders to different institutional environments. As strategists have argued, knowledge of this
environment—the demographics of the customer base, general
cultural norms and trends, the local economy, political and legal
conditions—is a critical prerequisite to formulating effective business strategies (e.g., Hitt, Keats, & DeMarie, 1998; Oliver, 1997;
Walters & Priem, 1999). While we know of no comprehensive
framework of global work experiences, current research suggests
that four specific types of global work experiences likely provide
leaders’ exposure to foreign institutional environments. Being on
an international assignment physically places role incumbents in a
foreign country and demands adaptation to a novel institutional
context (e.g., Black et al., 1991). This context often entails learning different laws, business practices, language and systems of
meaning, frames of reference, and behaviors, motivations, habits,
and values of the local people (McCall & Hollenbeck, 2002)—and
it has been argued that international experiences are a means for
developing leaders’ strategic view of the business and its global
environment (e.g., Black, Gregersen, & Mendenhall, 1992).
Leaders who manage multinational business operations are similarly challenged to navigate an unfamiliar institutional environment. These leaders may be charged with overseeing their firms’
operations in foreign countries; they may need to piece together
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GLOBAL WORK EXPERIENCES
suppliers and other resources that are based in foreign countries;
they may work for a multinational firm that routinely considers the
implications of its operations across geographic markets. During
the course of these activities, they most likely work closely with
individuals who do not share the same cultural orientation. This
type of experience is seen by strategic management and leader
development scholars as challenging because it requires leaders to
broaden their perspective regarding the business and its environment to effectively perform their duties (Dalton & Ernst, 2004;
Roth, 1995; Sambharya, 1996; Tharenou, 2005).
Working as part of a multicultural team has also been identified
as a broadening experience for leaders (e.g., Black et al., 1999;
Gupta & Govindarajan, 2002; Shaffer et al., 2012). The interdependent nature of teamwork creates the need for close and continuous interactions among team members, which is why multicultural team experiences have been termed a “high contact”
experience (Caligiuri & Tarique, 2009, 2012). Leaders are exposed
to new ways of thinking about business problems, opportunities,
constraints, and different cultural perspectives when they actively
work with team members who are from varied cultural backgrounds. And these interactions offer a means for leaders to
expand their business and cultural perspectives.
Similarly, building a working relationship with someone who
does not share the same cultural background has also been termed
a high-contact global experience (Caligiuri & Tarique, 2009,
2012). Repeated interactions are needed to build a productive
working relationship. These interactions with culturally diverse
others provide a forum for each party to share and debate his or her
views of the business, mental framework for examining problems,
and perspectives on the salient trends in the institutional environment (Fee, Gray, & Lu, 2013). Moreover, to maintain productive
cross-cultural work relationships, leaders are challenged to craft
creative solutions that integrate different and often conflicting
perspectives of business stakeholders from varied cultural backgrounds (Brett, Behfar, & Kern, 2006).
Although these experiences likely provide developing leaders
the necessary exposure to foreign institutional environments, extended time in global work experiences is critical to enhancing
leaders’ strategic thinking competency. Initially, when working
globally, most of the leaders’ cognitive resources are devoted to
amassing knowledge regarding the distinct institutional environment—the national culture, legal and political constraints, customers’ preferences, and resulting business opportunities and threats
(e.g., Lane, Maznevski, & Mendenhall, 2004). It is only with
continued time that leaders become acquainted with this new
institutional environment and their cognitive resources are freed up
so that they can synthesize and apply this newly acquired business
knowledge to formulate globally appropriate strategic actions
(Kanfer & Ackerman, 1989). Several studies indirectly corroborate
this logic that global experiences broaden leaders’ knowledge of
their institutional environment to enhance their strategic capabilities. With their sample of 65 managers in the textile industry,
Arora, Jaju, Kefalas, and Perenich (2004) found that managers’
international experience was positively related to their selfassessed global orientation. Further, top executives’ international
experience relates to the strategic positioning of their firm (e.g.,
Nielsen & Nielsen, 2011; Reuber & Fischer, 1997; Sambharya,
1996), and firms with executives with international experience
perform better financially (Carpenter et al., 2001; Nummela,
869
Saarenketo, & Puumalainen, 2004). For this reason, we hypothesize:
Hypothesis 1: The length of time leaders have spent in global
work experiences positively relates to their strategic thinking
competency.
Because little prior work has considered the differential impact
of a set of global work experiences on leaders’ competencies, it is
premature to offer more exacting hypotheses about each type of
global work experience. Yet, this kind of facet-level exploration of
experience advances prior work by verifying whether certain experiences are more strongly related to leaders’ competencies than
others, as has been intimated by Shaffer et al. (2012). To provide
additional clarity to this emerging research area, we investigate the
following research question:
Research Question 1: Which type of global work experience—
that is, the time spent on (a) international assignment, (b) managing multinational business operations, (c) multicultural teams, and
(d) building relationships with culturally diverse others—positively relates to leaders’ strategic thinking competency?
Leaders’ Exposure to Culturally Distant Countries as
a Critical Boundary Condition
While work experience is influential to leaders’ development,
some leaders gain more from their experiences than others (e.g.,
DeRue, Nahrgang, Hollenbeck, & Workman, 2012; Dragoni et al.,
2009; Spreitzer et al., 1997). Work experience scholars have
argued that learning is facilitated when the time spent in an
experience is augmented by sufficient challenge (Quiñones, Ford,
& Teachout, 1995; Tesluk & Jacobs, 1998). Similarly, expertise
scholars assert that time is not enough for individuals to develop
more sophisticated cognitive structures (i.e., expertise); they also
need to be challenged (Sonnentag, 2000). In the realm of international work experience, “cultural distance” (Hofstede, 1980), “cultural novelty” (Black et al., 1991), or “cultural toughness” (Mendenhall & Oddou, 1985) determines the amount of challenge
facing international assignees. While these terms generally reference the same concept, we use the phrase cultural distance to be
consistent with recent empirical work (e.g., Chen…
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