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It seems like our own overseas Filipino workers are not the only
globally mobile people in the world. Talents from all over are going
around to work and live in countries other than their own.
Maury Peiperl, professor of
Leadership and Strategic Change, IMD International, gave a very
insightful look into global mobility at the Summit for Globalization
of HR in Taipei last month.
Peiperl defined global mobility
as the actual and the potential movement of individuals across
countries especially regions of the world. Movement may be initiated
by individuals or organizations and may or may not have a
job-related component. He says that people move because they are
told to move by their company or other agents; asked to move by
employer, potential employer or significant others; perceives
specific opportunity or driven to move on own reasons such as
economics, political necessity, adventure, cultural interests, learn
or develop new skills, develop a strong curriculum vitae and to get
away from something or someone.
From his research, this author of
Managing Change, Career Frontiers, Career Creativity and The
Handbook of Career Studies has identified the following patterns of
global mobility:
* ?Cross-national movement of
labor continues to increase yearly, having doubled in the last 30
years.
* Still, growth in labor mobility
significantly lags the growth in cross-national flow of goods and
services.
* ?In some developing countries,
the growing local supply of certain skills is reducing mobility
needs.
* ?In others, “surplus” labor
is being regularly exported to other countries; such “source”
countries have sometimes included Taiwan and certainly include the
Philippines, Pakistan, and Turkey, to name a few.
Peiperl emphasized that there is
no single entity that can be called global executive. Global
executives are those who do global work and global work is found in
the intersection of business complexity and cultural complexity.
He observed that expatriates sent
from headquarters to foreign locations (or “inpatriates”, vice
versa), to provide needed skills and/or to form tighter
international links, especially with headquarters (whether or not
they have global skills). He added that the Japanese executives
around the world outnumber all other nationals.
I agree with that because when a
Japanese company partners with a local company here, for example, it
is stipulated in the joint venture agreement that a number of people
from the Japanese partner be involved in the business to protect
their interests. So even those Japanese technicians are hired at
least at the managerial level and receive the expatriate packages.
He also classified global
activities and global citizens as: virtual global citizens (spend a
great deal of interaction across cultures and markets while staying
in home country); real global citizens (spend a great deal of
interaction across cultures and markets and a great deal of time
away from home culture and market); global travelers (spend a great
deal of time away from home culture and market); potential global
citizens (does not interaction with other cultures and markets and
spends time at home).
From this classification,
we can say that everybody is, indeed, a potential global citizen
(dreaming and, maybe preparing, to work abroad) and a virtual global
citizen (our colonial mentality sustains this).
Peiperl suggests that the
foundation to become real global citizens is global knowledge such
as: know who or social capital/relationships; know how or skills and
knowledge about work; know why or identification with strategy and
culture; and know what or understanding of specifics and facts. He
stressed that knowledge is a resource, not a competence. It is
essential to all other competencies but not sufficient to any of
them. The other global career capital are: cultural breadth,
language skills, interpersonal skills, cognitive complexity,
cosmopolitanism, systems skills, network and global track record.
More importantly, he accentuated
the threshold traits for being global: Integrity, required for
respect over the long haul; humility, fundamental to learning from
others; inquisitiveness, essential to seeking out and learning from
new experience; and hardiness, necessary for the above, and for
rising to the unique challenges of global work.
Peiperl speaks from his own
experience. He has taught, researched, or consulted in twenty-five
countries on four continents and is dedicated to promoting the role
of business in sustainable global development and in the resolution
of cross-national conflict.
(moje@mydestiny.net;
www.learningandinnovation.com)
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