Workshop 4 (half day)
Driving Business Success Through Understanding and Leveraging Corporate and National Cultures
Presenters: Miriam Erez, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology
Zeynep Aycan, Ko University
Brad Hall, ABN AMRO Bank
Coordinator: Sara Weiner, IBM
As cross-border trade continues to accelerate in both manufacturing and in service-related business, the importance of effective global organization and leadership continues to increase. Some companies state unequivocally that corporate culture supersedes local cultures. Other successful companies lean towards localization and autonomy. This workshop is intended to help participants understand current research and best practices in this area while actively participating to build their own point of view on when and how to balance global and local perspectives. The workshop will present both academic perspectives and practical methods and tools, along with illustrative examples. It will be targeted to individuals responsible for improving the performance of people and organizations in a global company.
Specifically, the workshop is designed to help participants:
- Understand the construct of global culture
- Determine ways in which local subsidiaries best adapt to global values
- Describe best practices in global HR management and leadership
- Define culture quotient (CQ) and help participants assess their own CQ
- Create a roadmap for use in ensuring alignment of global HR practices with local culture
Miriam Erez is the Mendes France Chaired Professor of Management and Economics at Technion-Israel Institute of Technology where she was former dean of the William Davidson Faculty of Industrial Engineering and Management in 19961998. Her research focuses on three major topics: work motivation, innovation, and cross-cultural organizational behavior. Miriam was the Israeli co-investigator on the GLOBE research. She conducted research on international mergers and acquisitions, and on global values of multinational companies. She was also the editor of
Applied Psychology: International Review (19972003) and past president of Division 1 of organizational psychology, IAAP. She is Fellow of SIOP; APA; and AoM. In 2002 she received the Award of the International Association of Applied Psychology for the Distinguished Scientific Contributions to the International Advancement of Applied Psychology. In 2005, she received the Israel Prize in Management Sciences. Miriam co-authored two books and co-edited two books on cross-cultural research and is the author of over 60 articles and book chapters written on work motivation, innovation, and cross-cultural organizational behavior. She received her PhD in organizational psychology at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, followed by a post doc in the Department of Psychology at the University of Maryland.
Brad Hall recently moved to Amsterdam as a senior vice-president of Talent Management for ABN AMRO Bank. He has over 15 years of internal and external consulting experience. Prior to ABN AMRO Bank, Brad joined IBM in 2000 as the executive in charge of organizational effectiveness and executive capabilities across IBMs Asia Pacific region, a $25.5B, 60,000-employee organization. He was previously the director of HR and Training for AT&T Global Services, a $12B unit of AT&T where his HR organization placed second in the 2000 PriceWaterhouseCoopers/Linkage award for HR Innovation. Brad was also the director of Organization Effectiveness for McDonalds Corporation. He lived on assignment in Asia for five years with AT&T and IBM, after which he was assigned to design the organization and culture for Lenovo, the first major Chinese global company. He is now a senior organization leadership consultant located at IBM headquarters in Armonk, NY. He completed his PhD in I-O psychology from Tulane University in 1989 with a dissertation focusing on cultural issues surrounding management practices of Japanese and U.S. corporations.
Zeynep Aycan is an associate professor of I-O psychology at Ko University in Instanbul. Her research focuses on the impact of culture on various aspects of organizational processes, including leadership, HR management, and womens career development. She has published three books and more than 35 book chapters and research articles in her field of expertise. Zeynep is the co-founder and the co-editor of the
International Journal of Cross-Cultural Management and serves on the editorial boards of
Applied Psychology: An International Review, Asian Journal of Social Psychology,
and reviews for journals such as Journal of Applied Psychology, and the
International Journal of Selection and Assessment. She is the president-elect of the International Society for the Study of Work and Organizational Values. She has been invited as a research fellow and guest lecturer to Aston Business School, UK; European School of Management, Oxford; Bordeaux School of Management, France, and Tartu School of Economics, Estonia. She has also served as a consultant or trainer to companies including Bechtel-Enka, Phillip-Morris, Migros, Alcatel, Efes, Pfizer, and GlaxoSmithKlein. She is the recipient of two awards (Recognition Award and Outstanding Young Scholar Award) from the Turkish Academy of Sciences for her contributions to management sciences at the national and international levels. She completed her PhD in Canada (Queens University) in cross-cultural psychology. She conducted post-doctoral studies at McGill University, Faculty of Management, where she taught cross-cultural management.
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