Knowledge Network: Faculty & Research

After five years of research involving companies and executives from around the world, Thunderbird School of Global Management has developed the world’s first psychometric assessment tool to measure an individual’s, as well as an entire organization’s Global Mindset.

This ground-breaking project from the world’s No. 1-ranked school of global management could significantly change the way global businesses compete. The research defines and assesses the individual attributes that make it possible for global managers to succeed in the global environment.

These skills are essential to success in today’s fast-accelerating global marketplace, yet hard to find or properly identify among the existing and highly-competitive talent pool.

Global Mindset is defined as a set of individual characteristics that help global leaders better influence individuals, groups, and organizations unlike themselves. Those characteristics include aspects of Intellectual Capital, Psychological Capital and Social Capital.

Thunderbird is the world’s first and only organization to have scientifically defined what a Global Mindset is and how it can be measured and developed in individuals and organizations. The school, which holds the Global Mindset trademark, coined the phrase, which has since become the buzz word in the global management industry. In fact, several business schools in the U.S., Canada, and the Middle East are now using the instrument as an integral part of their own MBA programs in global business.

Thunderbird’s Global Mindset® Inventory (TGMI), developed by Thunderbird’s Dean of Research Mansour Javidan, Ph.D., and professors Mary Teagarden, Ph.D., and David Bowen, Ph.D., gives companies an assessment tool that allows them to identify and examine the Global Mindset profile of individuals or units within their organizations. This allows global corporations to ensure they have managers who can handle the increasing complexities of global competition and global integration, whether or not they are posted in expat positions or remain in their home counties.

“Global corporations have a new challenge. They need to ensure a large pool of managers who can handle the increasing complexities of global competition and global integration. They need managers with a high stock of Global Mindset,” Javidan says. “Corporations, academic institutions, non-profits and government agencies now have the ability to measure and identify opportunities to develop the Global Mindset needed for their long-term success.”

So far, more than 6,200 people from over 200 organizations have been involved with this research and have completed the Global Mindset® Inventory, an online survey of 91 questions that takes about 10 minutes to complete. Top global companies and organizations including Intel China, LG electronics, Amway and Raytheon, among others, have already used the tool in their executive development programs in order to stay on the cutting-edge of international business.

“We want to avoid sending somebody overseas who might not have the Global Mindset, then having to retract them back to the U.S.,” says Daniel Graf, Raytheon learning lead for Business Development and International. “This tool allows us to get that baseline. This helps us create the action plans from which we can help develop our leaders.”

The TGMI is part of the Global Mindset® Leadership Institute, one of Thunderbird’s Centers for Excellence and the preeminent source of the science and practice of global leadership as it relates to the definition, measurement and development of global mindset.

Is a global mindset in your DNA?
Thunderbird has created a psychometric tool that is changing how global businesses compete. Learn more about the Global Mindset Institute or contact the project leader, Thunderbird Dean of Research Mansour Javidan, Ph.D., at mansour.javidan@thunderbird.edu.

Posted: 01|5|10 at 10:42 am.
Filed under: Bowen, David, Global Mindset, Human Resources, Javidan, Mansour, Teagarden, Mary.
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