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Global Leadership-A Narrative Synthesis
Article in Academy of Management Annual Meeting Proceedings · November 2013

DOI: 10.5465/AMBPP.2013.17282abstract
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A meta-framework on
Global Leadership- an
attempt to reduce
conceptual confusion
Global Leadership Abstract
ABSTRACT
Global leadership has won prominence within the last two decades. Due to its young history and the
multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary work conducted, a common understanding of global leadership has not
yet been established. This work develops an embrionic meta-framework with the help of a thematic summary
that enables to synthesize the existing publications independent of their definitions used in their original and
therefore helps to decrease the conceptual confusion. 185 documents are thematically evaluated in an online
search of several databases. The results of the inductive thematic in-depth analysis confirm conceptual confusion
through the wide range or even absence of clear global leadership definitions and assumptions. Contrary
synthesizing their content presents a more completed understanding within the three sections of the final meta-
framework: (a) global leadership process, (b) global mindset development and last but not least (c) global talent
management. Through the synthesis of the analysed underlying mechanisms of each study the three sections are
interwoven and support to gather the current global leadership models and theories within the developed
framework. Our meta- framework highlights the relevance of the social learning theory, the concept of
psychological capital and the implicit leadership theory as underlying mechanisms. Future research is indicated
with a greater number of studies and changed criterion to extend external validity developing further
understanding of the underlying mechanisms.
Keywords: Global leadership, global mindset, global talent management, social learning theory, psychological
capital,
INTRODUCTION
The current research on global leadership is round about 20 years but according to Reiche &
Mendenhall (2012, p. 268) they identify global leadership as probably “…the most important issue limiting the
field of global leadership from further advancing: the lack of a rigorous and widely accepted definition and
operationalization of the construct of global leadership itself” which is the key to study it (Story, 2011; Rost,
1993).
In a similar vein, Osland (2012, p. 75) identifies in her latest literature review as one potential reason for
the “conceptual confusion” that the understanding of global leadership in empirical studies “…was left to
interviewees… [and] in other studies, the definition was merely assumed (all global managers or CEO´s are
global leaders)”. She presents this as an important reason for the “conceptual confusion” and applies the global
leadership definition of Mendenhalls´, et al., (2012) three dimensional construct of contextual, relational and
spatial-temporal dimensions.
However, not only research but further in practice the insufficient state of research is highlighted in the
Global Leadership Development Survey 2012 (Morrison, 2012). In a similar vein, the increasing globalization
requires a rising talent pool of global leaders (Black and Morrison, 2014: UNCTAD, 2010; UNCTAD, 2009).
The last Accenture research on global companies (Thomas, et al., 2012, p. 5) states that “… only a few [global
CEOs] felt that their own companies were doing enough to cope with the complexity or to prepare a pipeline of
global leaders with the skills they believed necessary for future competitive success.”
Important terms such as (a) global leadership, (b) global leader, (c) global mindset, (d) global talent
management, and (e) global leadership development are employed interchangeable and their definitions miss
clear differentiation to each or at least some of the others (Tarique & Schuler, 2010; Mendenhall, et al., 2012 b).
Different philosophies and paradigms e.g. understanding ´global leadership´ as a job function (Jokinen,
2005) or as a social construct (Steyrer, et al., 2006) and psychological approaches use different terms to connote
the same matter. From this point of view global leadership can be seen as multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary.
03.03.2019 20:22:00 I
Global Leadership Fehler! Kein Text mit angegebener Formatvorlage im Dokument. -
More specifically, Rost (1993) claims that “leadership” in general constitutes that scientific finding
could not be summed up if there is no common definition of what has been studied. Drawing on Mendenhall et
al. (2012) and publications from the same and additional scholars in the special edition on “global leadership” of
the Journal of World Business, Vol. 47 (2012) and the Special Volume in European Journal of International
Management, Vol. 7 (2013, Issue 5) implicating further research to decrease the conceptual confusion.
With respect to these studies, this work aims to collect a range of the established as well as the latest
findings on global leadership frameworks, process models and theories to gather them into one meta-framework
for gaining better in-depth understanding through inductive thematic summary.
To establish a common understanding of global leadership will require an intensive cooperation
between science and practitioners. Meanwhile the development of a meta-framework that enables better
understanding of the actual scientific findings and the use of terms in relation to global leadership could help to
minimize the above claimed conceptual confusion which is the aim of this study. It is not intended to propose the
one and only theory of global leadership or the “one-size-fits –all” approach, furthermore it is intended to offer a
tool that supports the coexistence of different global leadership frameworks, process models and theories and
visualize their interdependencies.
To this end, the aim of this paper intends to deliver a meta-framework to assess and synthesize the
different philosophies, theories, models and definitions in relation to global leadership (as an overarching term)
for the purpose of decreasing conceptual confusion and uncovering the underlying mechanisms. Our study
contributes on the recent call made by Mendenhall et al. (2012) and Osland (2012) on decreasing conceptual
confusion.
Our paper is structured as follows: In the following the term global leadership will be broken down into
leadership and global. We further review the historical development from domestic to global leadership and the
interdisciplinary fields of research exerting influence on the emergence of research in global leadership are
shortly described. Further, global leadership as a process and its development and global leadership knowledge,
skills, traits and competencies which took influence on the other constructs of global mindset and global talent
management closes our review. Methodology follows. We employ a content analysis or more specific inductive
thematic summary approach with specific selected criteria. Next results of the synthesis are presented. Finally
our conclusion shows limitations of this work and implications for research and practice.
LITERATURE REVIEW
In the following a common understanding of leadership and global is proposed. Then global leadership
is defined. Models and theories are proposed.
“Leadership”
Yukl (2013, p. 18) highlights that leadership has been “…taken from common vocabulary and
incorporated into the technical vocabulary of a scientific discipline without being precisely defined”. Rost (1993,
p. 8) has claimed this in a more dramatic way stating “…the concept of leadership does not add up because
leadership scholars and practitioners have no definition to hold on.” If this is the fact, the conceptual confusion
stated by Osland (2012) seems to be a logical consequence. This lack of rigor could, however, also be
understood as a result of the increasing change in managerial theory and practice.
More recently, Yukl (2013) lists eight definitions as a reference, half of them released within the last
decade of the 20th century. For this paper, three sources are evaluated for the definitional purpose. One is driven
by Kotter (1990) when evaluating the dichotomy of leadership and management. A discussion which is of
interest for leadership as a process - as dimension of both - are shared or overlapping (Mendenhall, 2012). The
next is provided by Rost (1993), being well known for his critics and his follower theory. The last is drawing on
House, et al (2002) initiating the first global – and up to today the largest – empirical study related to leadership
in a global context. A review of additional definitions have not brought opposite statements or important critical
aspects affecting the further process as they unify the core statement that “…leaders influence others to help
accomplish group or organizational objectives” (Chhokar, et al., 2007, p. 5).
Kotter (1990) constitutes effective leadership as a process “…moving people to a place in which both
they and those who depend upon them are genuinely better off, and when it does so without trampling on the
rights of others” (1990, p. 5). This process, Kotter (1990) proceeds, includes (1) establishing direction, (2)
aligning people, and (3) motivating and inspiring them. “Good management” by Kotter (1990, p. 4) contrasts
“…brought a degree of order and consistency to key dimension like the quality and profitability of products.” He
describes the related processes as (1) planning and budgeting, (2) organizing and staffing, and (3) controlling and
problem solving. This goes in line with the factually definition of Rost (1993, p. 145) “Management is an
authority relationship between at least one manager and one subordinate who coordinate their activities to
produce and sell particular goods and/or services”.
Leadership in contrast has been enriched by Rost (1993) implementing the aspects of ethics stating that
leadership really works if “…it adds to the autonomy and value of individuals in relationship” and “does not
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require individuals to sacrifice some of their integrity to be in relationship” (1993, p. 161). He sums up:
“Leadership is an influence relationship among leaders and followers who intend (or do) real changes (things)
that morally elevate organizations and the people in them” (p. 165). Rost´s inclusion of ethic arguments seems -
from the retrospective - to relegate already to aspects which will be important in global leadership: respectful
acceptance of cultural difference among leaders and followers.
Four years after Kotter (1990) has released his definition, in August 1994 fifty-four researchers from 38
countries met the first time to setup definitions for the first international study about culture and leadership: the
GLOBE project. They agreed on the following definition of organizational leadership: “The ability of an
individual to influence, motivate, and enable others to contribute toward the effectiveness and success of
organizations of which they are members” (House, et al., 2002, p. 5). In the following Table 1 it is elusive how
much of those definitions have entered into global leadership definitions.
Spreitzer, (1997, p. 7) Executive who is in a job with some international scope, whether in an
et al,. expatriate assignment or in a job dealing with international issues more
generally
Adler 1997,174 Global leadership involves the ability to inspire and influence the thinking,
attitudes, and behavior of people from around the world. . . [it] can be
described as ‘‘a process by which members of the world community are
empowered to work together synergistically toward a common vision and
common goals resulting in an improvement in the quality of life on and for the
planet.’’ Global leaders are those people who most strongly influence the
process of global leadership.
Adler, (2000, p. 216) Global leaders, unlike their domestic counterparts, must be able to articulate a
et al,. globally encompassing vision and to communicate that vision to people around
the world in ways that inspire them to work together to achieve individual,
organizational, and societal goals
Jokinen (2005, p. 201) Global leader is anyone having global responsibility over any business activity
and global leaders can be found also in lower levels of organization.
Caligiuri (2006, p. 219) Global leaders, defined as executives who are in jobs with some international
scope must effectively manage through the complex, changing, and often
ambiguous global environment
Harris, (2006, p. 25) Global Leadership—being capable of operating effectively in a global
et al., environment while being respectful of cultural diversity. This is an individual
who can manage accelerating change and differences. The global leader is open
and flexible in approaching others, can cope with situations and people
disparate from his or her background, and is willing to reexamine and alter
personal attitudes and perceptions.
Beechler & Javidan (2007, p. 140) Global leadership is the process of influencing individuals, groups and
organizations (inside and outside the boundaries of the global organization)
representing divers cultural/political/ institutional systems to contribute
towards the achievement of the global organization’s goals
Caligiuri & Tarique (2009: 336) Global leaders [are] high level professionals such as executives, vice presidents,
directors, and managers who are in jobs with some global leadership activities
such as global integration responsibilities. Global leaders play an important role
in developing and sustaining a competitive advantage.
Yukl (2010, p. 43) A manager able to understand, communicate with, and influence people from
different cultures.
Conger & (2012, p. 53) Basically, the term refers to an organization’s leadership talent who work
OŃeil across geographic and cultural boundaries. These leaders can be found at all
levels of [the] organization — from the front line to the executive suite. They are
a unique breed compared to other line leaders, with distinctive
capabilities.
Mendenhall; (2012, p. 262) Global leaders are individuals who effect significant positive change in
Osland; Bird; organizations by building communities through development of trust and the
Oddu; Maznevski; arrangement of organizational structures and processes in a context involving
Stevens; Stahl. multiple cross-boundary stakeholders, multiple sources of external cross-
boundary authority, and multiple cultures under conditions of temporal,
geographical and cultural complexity.
The table 1 following displays the conceptual confusion analysed by Osland (2012, p. 75): The
definitions varying in describing global leadership as state (e.g. Spreitzer, et al., (1997)), or a process (e.g. Adler
(1997) or even both (2012, p. 262)) and characterize the leader by unspecific descriptions, e.g. as “members of
the world community” (Adler, 1997, p. 174) or “anyone having global responsibility over any business activity”
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(Jokinen, 2005, p. 201). In other cases parts of the definitions remain uncertain by just referring to cross-border
leadership (Harris, et al., 2007; Yukl, 2010; Conger & OŃeil, 2012). These sum of inconsistent and unspecific
definitions, which in the end leave it to the judgement of the reader to decide to whom the definition may apply
or what kind of people represent the sample, do not offer resilient basement for comparing and synthesising
research results. Another group contrary limit the species of global leaders to members of the top management
like executives only (Spreitzer, et al., 1997, p. 7; Caligiuri, 2006, p. 219; Caligiuri & Tarique, 2009, p. 336) but
does not deliver clear differentiation to understand the variable of the global leader.
“Global”
The second term, “global”, is derivated from the Latin word globus (= ball, globe) and has been
synonym for the whole world as astronomical body. To transfer this to commercial organizations a review of the
stages of internationalization provides clarity. The steps to be differentiated are multinational enterprises (1),
global enterprises (2) and transnational enterprises (3). The ranking is based on the historical development and
on the differentiation of Bartlett and Ghoshal´s model (1990) and Perlmutter´s (1969) model (e.g. Adler &
Bartholomew, 1992).
More specifically, multinational enterprises keep core competencies and strategic decisions in a
centralized headquarter, mostly in the country of origin, and spread out distribution related tasks to the foreign
subsidiaries. According to Smit & Morgan (2002) it is common for such organizations to use natives of the
origin to manage the foreign operations. US related publications use the term of “multinational companies
(MNC)” instead (Barefoot & Mataloni Jr., 2010). The United Nations´ (including subsidiaries and cooperation’s)
statistics on multinational enterprises are used as reference in many research papers for multinational enterprises
even without a clear definition for multinational enterprises. The OECD guidelines for multinational enterprises
resume: “A precise definition of multinational enterprises is not required ... These usually comprise companies
or other entities established in more than one country” (OECD, 2008, p. 12).
Global enterprises are a further stage of cross boundaries and cross-cultural business operation.
Contrary to the more centralized strategic management of multinational enterprises global organizations focus to
consolidate best practice and share resources cross-border to gain competitive advantage, managing global
efficiency, local responsiveness and all kind of resources simultaneously (Smit & Morgan, 2002).
Extending the global spread of operationalization and structure takes organization from global to
transnational enterprises. Symptomatic for this kind of organization are a complex web – or as Javidan & Walker
(2012, p. 39) describe it: “…more a network of supply chain partners…” - of strategic alliances, multiple
headquarters in different cultural environments resulting in less hierarchical structures, enabling to modify their
products for best-fit of the individual (cultural) destination (Adler & Bartholomew, 1992). According to Bartlett
& Ghoshal (2003, p. 102) this optimizes “…global-scale efficiency and competitiveness; national level
responsiveness and flexibility; and cross-market capacity to leverage learning on a worldwide basis.” Often the
term of transnational companies is used interchangeably.
Summarizing the above steps of enterprise structure development lead to two consequences for global
leadership: (1) All of these companies operate cross borders and face different cultural understandings or are at
least influenced if not dispersed geographically (Javidan & Walker, 2012). Respecting their differences,
literature and statistics of all three research subjects can be appropriated. (2) The differences in structure effect
leaders’ requirements; from multinational to transnational the focus of required knowledge, skills and abilities
shift from business expert to cross-cultural competence (Conger & OŃeil, 2012) and from using strictly
hierarchal orientated policies to succeeding “without relying on traditional lines of authority” (Javidan &
Walker, 2012, p. 39). It changes the demand of global mindset as well (Smit & Morgan, 2002) or as Cleaver
(2012, p. 23) says: “… from a unicultural way of perceiving the world to a multicultural mindset”.
To understand the evolution of globalization in economics the statistic of UNCTAD (United Nation
Conference for Trade and Development) about transnational enterprises provides a clear picture of dramatic
increase applicable to the increasing demand for global leadership. Scalera & Dumitrescu (2012) size the share
of GDP by MNEs to over 20 % of the global value.
“Early research: From domestic to global leaders”

The increasing internationalization towards globalization has left stringent marks in human resource and
leadership development: Before the 1980s international business and related leadership task have been
understood as minor contribution and therefore minor priority by most decision-makers. The 1980s have been
dominated by increasing internationalization of trade and investment business (Morrison, 2000). This
international business was mostly run by the headquarters of the enterprises origin. Therefore, the focus of
leaders have been orientated domestically and strongly influenced by their home culture (Dorfman, 2004).
Drawing on Harris, Moran and Moran (2006) the internationalization of business has led to a general
increase of complexity and cross-cultural communication, even for domestic leaders (Jokinen, 2005; Conger &
OŃeil, 2012; Mukherjee, et al., 2012). Most of them have not been prepared for it resulting in significant bad
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contribution to the organizations success abroad: Up to 40 percent returned before supposed, struggling with the
performance, cultural adaptability of their own or their family, or cross-cultural problems with employees (Black
& Mendenhall, 1989).
Expatriates, as the cases above or in general, should not be understood as equivalent for global leaders
neither vice versa (Jokinen, 2005). Nevertheless, expatriation research has delivered important contribution
about the required knowledge, competencies, skills, abilities, personality, and behavioral repertoires of
successful leaders.
Developmental opportunities are given in a first, light version to international business travelers, too,
insufficient particularly if their time to stay is too short to build deep understanding of another culture. Even the
educational results of an expatriation are often not transferable to other areas, but the personnel abilities of
openness and adaptiveness are. This leads to a priority of the individual´s abilities contra traditional business
trainings. (Conger & OŃeil, 2012).
Global business and the thereby required changes in organizational structure as well as communication
is growing, respectively developing, successful from domestic activities. Leadership is different. There is no
general mechanism to grow from domestic to global leadership function by closing the gap of higher demand on
competencies, skills and abilities - differentiating domestic and global leader´s - through pure knowledge
transfer, traditional business training, and international assignment (Conger & OŃeil, 2012).
“Other fields of study” - multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary

To setup relation between leaders and followers communication is essential. Therefore, the field of
intercultural communication competence as an own field of research support the development of global
leadership by investigating cultural communication competence, e.g. the pyramid model of Deardorff (2009) and
related communication patterns, as described by Bennett (2009). Osland (2012 b, p. 25) summarizes the
contribution of research on intercultural communication listing the aspects of (a) understanding expectations and
practiced communication of other cultures, (b) “adapting mindfulness, empathy, perspective taking, and
suspended judgment, which are all foundations for a global mindset”, (c) the uniqueness of each individuals or
cultural world view, respecting those of others, (d) adaptiveness to cultural different environment, (e)
understanding and operating suitable communication styles, and (f) acknowledging the need to employ different
skills and competencies depending on the context and or situation.
Another research field that has delivered valuable contribution is close to the one above: Expatriation
research. Oddou (1991) describes three types of expatriates: “the high-potential employee, the interested and
available employee, and the technical expert” (1991, p. 302). Especially the first kind of expatriate are in the
focus of global leadership development. Caligiuri & Di Santo (2001) have empirically tested, if expatriation is a
successful tool for global leadership training, concluding that it does not affect personality characteristics;
nevertheless they could document progress in sensitivity to intercultural challenges and developing knowledge.
Expatriation has added as major contribution to the field of global leadership research insights about personal
qualifications (potential) global leaders need to bring with them or develop (Caligiuri, 2000; Caligiuri & Di
Santo, 2001; Caligiuri, 2006).
Reiche and Mendenhall (2012) criticize in a short review that many scholars of global leadership –
without naming them – rooting in expatriation do not yet have defined the independent variable of their study.
A further important source is psychology. It delivers valuable input to cross-cultural aspects (Brodbeck,
2003), personnel development and moral (Bhola, 2002; Holt & Seki, 2008). The work of Goleman, et al. (2010),
about emotional intelligence is a valuable source to understand various leadership styles and is an example for
the strong association of psychology and human resources.
Beyond the scientific research roots described above Osland (2012 b) lists as well anthropology,
international affairs, economy, and global management. The latter refers among other subjects to Kotter´s
derivation between leadership and managers as well as followers.
The reason for not listing here global mindset, “being the cognitive ability … to best understand and
influence individuals, groups, and organizations from diverse social/cultural systems” (Clapp-Smith, et al.,
2007, p. 106), is its parallel, strongly interwoven research development to global leadership, but not one of its
roots. It developed from different scientific fields as well: Historically by Perlmutter (1969) who has established
the basic theory for global mindset with his work on geocentrism (world orientation) of managers in
multinational cooperation (Story, 2011). However, current research focus clearly on the link between global
mindset and global leadership ((Osland et al., (2012); Osland et al. (2006))
“Global Leadership” – Applied definitions

After approaching the origin of the terms ´leadership´ and ´global´, their combination in the notion of
´global leadership´ needs to be defined for this paper. For this paper, a working definition has now to be chosen
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that which best addresses activities as conducted in global and transnational enterprises. It thus has to cover the
increasing complexity of managerial practice and the challenges of cross-cultural demands, which both set the
requirements for global leadership apart from what is expected by domestic leaders. It should be applicable both
to the management processes (i.e., referring to “leadership”), and to personnel (i.e., the “leader”). The authors
seek a working definition for this paper that has proven acceptance round the world, equal to the definition of the
GLOBE study for “leadership”.
Taking this into consideration, the definition of Mendenhall, et al., (2012, p. 262) applies best: “Global
leaders are individuals who effect significant positive change in organizations by building communities through
the development of trust and the arrangement of organizational structures and processes in a context involving
multiple cross-boundary stakeholders, multiple sources of external cross-boundary authority, and multiple
cultures under conditions of temporal, geographical and cultural complexity.”
Drawing on Mendenhall,’s et al., (2012) definition above is converted from the individual describing
definition of the ´leader´ to the duty of leading followers: “Global leadership refers to the process of change in
organizations by which communities are built through the development of trust and the arrangement of
organizational structures in a context involving multiple cross-boundary stakeholders, multiple sources of
external cross-boundary authority, and multiple cultures under conditions of temporal, geographical and
cultural complexity.” The change-process Mendenhall, et al., (2012) refer to should not to be mixed up with
change management. It refers to a process changing the situation or, simply said, to an “influencing process”.
For better understanding of the term “positive” it is helpful to review the findings of Youssef & Luthans
(2012). They argue, that positive global leadership results in more efficient and motivating communication using
all kind of (technical) resources to bridge physical distance avoiding an ‘‘out-of-sight, out-of-mind’’-setting
entering in daily business. Challenges of cultural distance will be managed by positive global leadership in more
appropriate, ‘‘ambicultural’’ way by leveraging the good parts of each culture and avoiding the less useful or
even blocking influences. Contrary cross-cultural barriers, e.g. corruption, institutional deficiencies or language
barriers cannot be solved by positive global leadership. Nevertheless, Youssef & Luthans (2012, p. 545) argue
that “…leaders who possess positive traits such as courage and wisdom; have developed positive capabilities
and psychological resources such as hope, efficacy, resilience and optimism; and are intentional about behaving
ethically, authentically and in ways that systematically and integratively affirm the strengths, capabilities and
potential of their followers and their organizations over time and across contexts”.
To avoid confusion regarding the use of the terms “global mindset” and “global talent management”
will be explained for the use in this paper.
Global Mindset
The term of ´global mindset´, focusing on skills, feasibility and abilities of global leaders, is obviously
of crucial importance in our context. Bücker & Poutsma (2010, p. 832) elucidate the relevance of ćapabilities´
as the initial value “to perform effectively, which consist of knowledge, skills, abilities, personality, and
behavioural repertoires”. They point out that this includes both the “potential” and the “intent” to act. Beechler
& Javidan (2007, p. 152) conclude: “Global mindset is an individual’s stock of knowledge, cognitive, and
psychological attributes that enable him/her to influence individuals, groups, and organizations from diverse
sociocultural systems.“ Comparing this with the first part of Adler´s definition from 1997 (see Table 1: “Global
leadership involves the ability to inspire and influence the thinking, attitudes, and behaviour of people from
around the world.”) underlines the interconnection of both fields.
Global Talent Management

Discussing individual´s subjects such as seeking, evaluating, and or developing high performance and
potential talent related to the global leadership requirements is the core of “global talent management” (Lewis &
Heckman, 2006). Within this document the term of global talent management refers to the definition of Schuler
& Tarique (2012, p. 206): “Global talent management focus on [is about systematically utilizing] IHRM
activities (complementary HRM policies and policies) to attract, develop, and retain individuals with high levels
of human capital [e.g., competency, personality, motivation] consistent with the strategic directions of the
multinational enterprise [in a dynamic, highly competitive, and global environment] to serve the objectives of
multiple stakeholders.” The comments in square brackets are citations of the former definition published by
Tarique and Schuler (2010) being added to underline the proximity to global leadership and global mindset.
Global talent management, similar to global mindset and global leadership, is a young research field
having its main roots in international human resource management (Schuler & Tarique, 2012). As global
leadership and global mindset does, it refers as well to expatriation as another root and tool for leader
development, including changing and developing employees mindsets` (Stiles, 2012).
How much global talent management and global mindset are interwoven is outlined by comparing the
definition of Maznevski & Lane (2011, p. 174) for global mindset as: “…the ability [of the employee] to develop
03.03.2019 20:22:00 6
and interpret [own] criteria for personal and business performance that are independent from the assumptions
of a single country, culture, or context; and to implement those criteria appropriately in different countries,
cultures, and contexts” and further by the statement of Buckingham & Vosburgh (2001, p. 17) about managing
talent as “…the power in helping to maximize the individual's contribution to the organization's goals and to the
individual's own personal mission in life.”
To use Global talent management interchangeably with International Human Resource Management (as
happened in the past) can provide contradictory advice and fragmented theories. (Tarique & Schuler, 2010).
From the above discussion, we conclude that in order to avoid or reduce conceptual confusion within
this paper, it seems useful to provide a clear delineation of the key terms within the here discussed research field
of global leadership (as an overarching term). At the (very) intersection of global mindset and global talent
management within global leadership as an overarching term, global leadership in this paper will be seen as
process of exerting influence within organizations which is based on a global mindset.
Consequently, global leadership development is limited to the development of such process of
influence, whereas development of the individual leader is dealt with under the header of global talent
management as Lewis & Heckman (2006, p. 141) points out: “When ´talent´ is understood as a euphemism for
´leader´ (Lewis & Heckman, 2006) and ´managing´ includes “developing and motivating”, ´global talent
management´ could be - simplified - translated in ´developing the global leader’. It should not directly engage in
the leadership process as an independent driver of change. Its matter of development are the leader's capabilities,
which are based on his or her cognitive ability “(…) to best understand and influence individuals, groups, and
organizations from diverse social/cultural systems” (Clapp-Smith, et al., 2007) – in other words, forming ´global
mindset´.
TOWARDS A META- FRAMEWORK (FIGURE 1)

Global leadership as an ongoing process
Winston & Patterson (2006) have thoroughly examined and synthesised definitions and constructs of
leadership and described it as a process of exerting influence through „a prophetic vision of the future in clear
terms that resonates with the follower(s) beliefs and values in such a way that the follower(s) can understand
and interpret the future into present-time action steps.“ (p. 6) This definition describes what leaders (should) do:
Develop a vision, engage in two-way-communication (“resonate”), and initiate action in a way that things start to
move (=are successful influenced). Leadership processes, like any other are thus “interdependent acts that
convert inputs to outcomes” (Davison & Ekelund, 2004, p. 254). Therefore, the following literature review will
focus on task and process related literature.
Maloney and Zellmer-Bruhn (2006) describe (1) heterogeneity or multiple dimensions and (2) globally
dispersed work environments as the main characteristics of global leadership and global team settings. This
approach seems to be too universal and not helpful enough when it comes to differentiate global from other
forms of leadership processes. Furthermore Zander, et al., (2012) conflate global leadership with the concept of
“multi-cultural teams”, which has established independently in scientific literature. Shokef & Erez (2006, p.
328), for example, define multi-cultural teams (MCT) “…as teams of natives from different cultural
environments and holding diverse cultural identities. So far this would be transferable to the situation of
stakeholders in a global leadership process as well. But the field of MCT rather deals with the interaction and
relation among the team (Zander, et al., 2012). For the current research this is only relevant as far as shared
leadership is practised (Carson, et al., 2007; Ishikawa, 2012), an issue rarely addressed in global leadership
literature. It would also match with the definition of transnational enterprises, if the latter operated similar to a
network.
To gain an overview over what the process of global leadership covers, Davison and Ekelund´s (2004)
overview on global team processes, understood to be guided and developed by the leader, provide a useful
starting point. An isolated presentation of the processes and tasks above would not uncover the specific
characteristic of global leadership, thus a deeper look into the dimension of the global is required. The
retrospective literature review suggests that the term global does not refer solely to the enterprises structure (in
the sense of being a global or transnational enterprise) in order to explain the operational level for global
leadership. The structural background of decision taking across cultural borders is at least equally important.
Mendenhall, et al., (2012 b), investigated what characterises the “global” in global leadership. They
based the introduced model on the three dimensions of (1) complexity, (2) flow and (3) presence. These three
dimensions describe the environmental influence to the global leadership process, thus setting it apart from local
leadership processes:
1. Complexity: It stands for the contextual dimension including multiplicity, interdependence,
ambiguity, and flux (Mendenhall, et al., 2012 b). This dimension represents activities related to the multiple lines
of interest as well as the environmental conditions to be managed by the global leader, e.g. process of change
management.
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2. Flow: This stands for the relational dimension including boundary spanning of psychic or cultural
distance to enable flow of information, measured in richness and quantity. This has influence on the
communication process and information handling managed by the global leader.
3. Presence: It covers the spatial-temporal dimension. It is e.g. related to time and travel management of
global leaders.
Mendenhall, et al., (2012 b) emphasize that requirements vary significantly for each type of leadership
function and therefore cannot be defined by fixed sizes. In their sample, the head of global IT function does not
need the same physical presence due to operating his business on a more fact-orientated decision base while the
leader of a global team (e.g. in sales) influence more through emotions built on physical, direct contact. Physical
presence should not be understood as a counterpart to psychic distance, even if it is a related subject. Psychic
distance is an established construct to understand cultural differences (Brookes & Smith, 2007) on the individual
level (Sousa & Bradley, 2006).
The numerous requirements global leaders face brings up the question if one universal specification for
a global leadership function does exist. Bartlett & Ghoshal (2003) clearly denied this. They introduced four types
of managers, necessary in transnational enterprises, leading in a global scale: (1) Global business or product-
division managers owning a superior responsibility for the enterprise´s global-scale efficiency and
competitiveness. (2) Country managers as interfaces to local customers’ needs and host government’s
regulations. These country managers are also supposed to defend their company’s market position against local
and foreign competitors. (3) Functional managers initiating and transferring innovation as well as connecting
scarce resources and capabilities across boundaries and cultures. (4) Last but not least a corporate manager who
“…not only leads in the broadest sense; he or she also identifies and develops talented business, country, and
functional managers - and balances the negotiations among the three” (Bartlett & Ghoshal, 2003, p. 108).
Accordingly, if there is no one type of global leaders, there should be more than one global leadership
process, too. As the matter of fact, key to solve this problem is the possibility to understand each global
leadership process as consisting of the same tasks, with their combination and respective importance differing
from case to case. Bird (2012) has discussed no less than 160 global leadership competencies and still managed
to collate them in simple framework, the framework of nested global leadership competences. Hence
competences or capabilities in global leadership are not to be confused with process tasks in general, even if the
terminology used by Bird enables an easy transfer to the related tasks.
Another similar suggestion is put forward by the work of Javidan & Walker (2012). They used three
groups of capabilities are similar to Bird, calling them (1) intellectual capital, (2) cognitive capital and (3) social
capital. The description of the three groups allows an easy conversion into those tasks that a global leader has to
combine to fulfil his duty. Zander, et. al., (2012) maintain that common denominator of all kinds of global
leadership functions are their character as boundary spanning activities, bridging cultural and linguistic
differences. Rising globalisation coincides with digitalization, allowing increasingly for a virtual team setup as
an organizational standard (Olson, et al., 2012). This warrants taking a closer look due to its influence on flow
and presence. Leading virtual teams as opposed to collocated teams, requires different abilities, among others
that of replacing face-to-face communication. As a result, traditional leadership tools are of a limited usability.
Developing and optimizing team processes and monitoring as well as managing the on-going team performance
for management use requires different approaches (Zander, et al., 2012). Zander, et al., (2012) propose to
establish clear and transparent structures, including directions and individual goals supporting a progressive
mechanism for self-management and development of each team member. The proposed processes should not be
understood as a revival of “traditional” leadership, with orders and control falling on the fruitfully soil of
established senses of duty and loyalty. Challenged by the lack of broadly available talent, sometimes discussed
as a ´war for talent´ (Cleaver, 2012), sustainable leadership needs to build competence in people-orientated
leadership (Zander, et al., 2012). Burkus (2012) adds that leaders need to decide on the level of their personal
involvement and decentralize management structures in order to empower their team members. Thus, global
leadership encompasses the process of developing followers.
The global leadership literature does not discuss the single processes being utilized by the leader. Who
is interested in it, needs to refer to the specific literature of the subject. E.g. for understanding the need to invite
followers to participate in the planning of change management should consult Schleuter & von Stosch (2009).
To sum up, global leadership as a process of exerting influencing has multiple layers and requires
simultaneous actions on different levels, e.g. those shown as system skills in Osland´s (2012) pyramid model,
due to the necessity to create resonance across -boundaries and with cross-cultural stakeholders and
environments. This is in line with the definition of Adler, et al., (2000, p. 216) and Beechler & Javidan (2007, p.
140).
Global leadership (process) development

According to the description of global leadership as process to initiate follower’s action, global
leadership development entails process evolution and drivers for change.
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In analogy to the section on the global leadership process, this part builds on scientific findings relating
to the leadership process development in general: Already two decades ago Nadler & Tushman (1994, p. 278)
have identified the need to implement a leadership and process development that responds to “the complexity of
system-wide changes in large, diverse, geographically complex organisations”. They have categorized four main
motivations for global leadership development in a framework-grid sorted by effect, size and temporal cause-
and-effect relationship. The latter factor determines whether the influences on the process are proactive
(anticipatory to the cause) or whether they are the consequence of an external event (reactive). Nadler &
Tushmans´ (1994) notion of effect size refers to either the dimensions of fundamental impact (strategic changes),
or improvement of efficiency within the existing strategy. Combining these four arguments they relate tuning
and adaption as forms of process optimization and re-orientation and re-creation as forms of process
restructuring.
In this paper global leadership development is also related to the optimization or restructuring of
influencing process that cause followers to take action. It is not about the personnel development of the global
leader as human being. The importance of global leadership development has been confirmed in Osland´s (2008)
overview on global leadership due to its positive effect on financial success, even if most studies she had been
drawing focus more on global leaders’ competences than on the process itself.
Unfortunately, the database research and abstract reading in preparation of this synthesis produced a
very small sample of literature which investigates global leadership development as the development of a
(leadership or management) process (Black & Morrison, 2012; Ajarimah, 2001; Service & Kennedy, 2012;
Burkus, 2012; Holt & Seki, 2008).
Those found refer to the problem of future workforce development, indicating future challenges in need
to be addressed. Tucker, et al., (2009, p. 17) for example describe the next-generation workforce as “… short on
experienced talent, globally dispersed, virtually connected, and prepared to be authoritative on the job”. This
will lead to an increasing demand for workforce or talent development. To enable successful and efficient
development it is mandatory to understand the influencing variables to the leadership process, thus a matter for
further research.
Required competencies, capabilities for global leadership

Global Mindset
The process of leadership is not only influenced by environmental issues or stakeholders. Leadership is
strongly depending on the individual capabilities of the global leader. Bücker & Poutsma (2010, p. 832)
elucidate the relevance of capabilities as the basic value, allowing “to perform effectively”. They define
capabilities further as “knowledge, skills, abilities, personality, and behavioural repertoires”. They point out that
this includes the “potential” and the “intent” to act. The concept of capabilities is often used in literature on
leadership interchangeably with competences. Such essential capabilities for global leaders are summarized as
the global mindset. Global mindset should therefore be seen as a never-ending evolutionary process of the
individual, driven mainly by curiosity (Hruby, 2013).
Historically Perlmutter (1969) has established the groundwork for a theory for the global mindset with
his work on geocentrism (world orientation) of managers in multinational cooperation (Story, 2011).
Caligiuri (2006) categorizes relevant competences a leaders should dispose of in order to fulfil global
leadership tasks successfully. She distinguishes (1) knowledge, such as cultural (in general and specific) or
international business knowledge, (2) skills in the sense of routines acquired through experience, e.g. in
negotiating or managing de-escalation between different cultures and nationalities, (3) abilities, including those
of reasoning, of verbal and non-verbal communication and, most importantly the cognitive ability to understand
and manage complexity; and last but not least (4) individual characteristics. Caligiuri (2006) defines individual
characteristics according to ´the Big Five´ (types of personal characteristic) as follows: (1) “extroversion -
…more will to put forth the effort necessary to interact effectively with people from different countries…, (2)
agreeableness - …deal with conflict collaboratively, strive for mutual understanding, and being less competitive
result in greater cross-cultural adjustment and success on global leadership tasks involving collaboration…, (3)
conscientiousness - …demonstrate greater effort and task commitment…, (4) emotional stability - ….universal
adaptive mechanism enabling humans to cope with stress…, (5) openness or intellect - …fewer rigid views of
right and wrong, appropriate and inappropriate, etc. and more likely to accept of diverse cultures…”
Measurable values for the above presented characteristics are not been presented by Caligiuri (2006),
similar to Mendenhall, et al., (2012 b) and their model of global leadership.
More recently, Caligiuri & Tarique (2012) highlight the relevance of the cross-culture related
capabilities as well as the importance of extroversion and openness in their empirical research by interviewing
420 global leaders, among them 221 supervisors in global business operation.
Already in 2008 Osland gathered 62 capabilities for global leadership. This points out that the findings
above should be understood as generalisations, not as a comprehensive description. Furthermore, this high
number suggests that a kind of grid will help to understand and systemize different capabilities and categories.
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Osland (2008) identified three frameworks, which she finally integrated in her latest Pyramid Model.
This Pyramid Model was developed first in 2004 and got more sophisticated by continuous integration of new
empirical findings from global leadership studies over the time.
In a recent research conducted, Osland (2012) categorizes the capabilities – starting from the bottom up-
in (1) Global knowledge, which represents knowledge, e.g. built on international experience and is often routed
in expatriation. (2) Threshold traits, or “personal characteristics” according to Caligiuri (2006), as stable
capabilities of the personality and therefore should be a selection criteria for (potential) global leaders. (3)
Attitudes and orientation that allow the global leader to understand and interpret the world around him or her.
Caligiuri (2006) terms this group “abilities”. This is experience driven but also strongly depending on one’s
ability to develop the understanding. Osland (2012) uses global mindset in a tighter understanding contrary to the
definition this paper. (4) Interpersonal skills. While the first three categories are more likely prerequisites,
interpersonal skills are crucial to set them into operation. These capabilities strongly influence ´how´ things are
done. (5) System skills are the result of the first four categories. These skills represent the actions a successful
global leader need to conduct to influence, inside and outside the own operation and or organization. This
pyramid does not provide a ranking in the sense of what is suggested to be developed first. It does even not state
whether these capabilities are all of the same importance.
Conger & OŃeil (2012) point to the need to adjust the criteria to the individual enterprise and the
hierarchal level or the function at stake. Hence the criteria should rather be understood as indicators highlighting
what differentiates a global leader from other leaders: Global leaders are those which utilize their system skills -
based on their interpersonal skills, attitudes, traits and knowledge - to influence followers and processes (Osland,
2012). If someone disposed of all the interpersonal skills, attitudes, traits and knowledge but cannot apply them
to exert influence, he or she will not become a successful global leader. Beyond that someone might be a
successful leader in national business, yet lack of a global mindset or of multicultural understanding will limit
his/her development towards global leadership.
Kim & Stratcher (2012) confirm the global applicability of the findings above, basing themselves on
twelve interviews with successful Korean leaders operating across cultural boundaries. Beside family heritage
and pivotal encounters they rank attitudes and skills as decisive. This is followed by traits (still ranked as
important) and academic achievement in category of knowledge. Their paper does not confirm, however, that the
capabilities need to be of the same character or importance everywhere.
Rønning, et al., (2010) refer to Osland´s (2008 b,) pyramid model when pointing out that too strong a
focus on the capabilities of the leaders as drivers of global leadership is very risky due to the diversity and
complexity of the environment that multinational enterprises operate in. They criticise this approach as ”…logic
of instrumentality” (Rønning, et al., 2010), according to which the leader is seen merely as an instrument. They
propose to use what they call the “logic of appropriateness” or to combine at least both approaches in the sense
of adjusting them to the “local context rather than simply reflecting the rational choices of the person in the
leading role of manager” (Rønning, et al., 2010, p. 4). Following this argumentation, global leadership is rather
depending on the situational and or local influences than on the overall qualifications of the leader (Huges, et al.,
2012, p. 571). Bücker & Poutsma (2010) refer to this situational influence, too, and highlight the contemporary
challenge of permanent change in business. They develop their Global Management Competencies Model which
differs in the inclusion of meta-cognition, “representing an active and dynamic learning process“ (Bücker &
Poutsma, 2010, p. 838) helping to face and cope with permanent changes. Thus meta-cognition is an important
ability which has been added to the pyramid model of Osland (2012). As Bücker & Potsuma´s (2010) model
focuses on personal development it will be further reviewed in the following chapter.
Service & Kennedy (2012) focus on permanent learning from a different angle. They have extended
their own crossing cultures Leadership Quotient© and the rest-of-us leadership model introducing the global
leadership effectiveness model (Service & Kennedy, 2012). The model presents the interrelation between (1)
reflection & introspection, (2) extrospection & perspective and (3) useful applications. Each pair is described as
a source of wisdom (knowledge) in its own right. It needs to be complied in order to gain a multi-layered
wisdom constantly under review. Following Service & Kennedy´s approach, value-based global leadership
capable of an understanding of emotions is the key to success (Service & Kennedy, 2012).
An example for the effect of emotions is given by Youssef & Luthans (2012) in their investigation of
the relevance of “positive” attitudes among the required skills, abilities and characteristics of global leadership.
They conclude that this enables better results in solving the challenges of (1) distance, (2) cultural difference and
(3) cross-cultural barriers. Positive global leadership, they argue, results in more efficient and motivating
communication using all kind of (technical) resources to bridge physical distance and to avoid an ‘‘out-of-sight,
out-of-mind’’-setting spreading in daily business. Challenges of cultural distance should be managed by positive
global leadership in more appropriate, ‘‘ambicultural’’ way by setting the useful aspects of each culture in
motion while avoiding the less useful or even blocking ones. Cross-cultural barriers, like corruption, institutional
deficiencies or language barriers cannot be solved by positive global leadership, though. Nonetheless, Youssef &
Luthans (2012, p. 545) argue that “leaders who possess positive traits such as courage and wisdom have
developed positive capabilities and psychological resources such as hope, efficacy, resilience and optimism; and
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are intentional about behaving ethically, authentically and in ways that systematically and integrative affirm the
strengths, capabilities and potential of their followers and their organizations over time and across contexts”.
The findings above suggest that it is essential to understand how knowledge, traits and abilities lead to
efficient skills allowing exerting influence in multi-cultural environment. What understanding of and adapting to
(multi-) cultural and emotional changes means has been investigated separately, leading to a theory on cultural
intelligence, abbreviated CQ (cultural quotient). A comprehensive overview can be found in Earley & Ang
(2003) or Ang, et al., (2007). According to Crowne (2008), CQ consists of four dimensions: three of which are
mental capabilities, like ´meta-cognition´, ćognition´ and ´motivation´ and behaviour in the form of óvert
actions´. According to Ang, et al. (2007), metacognitive intelligence refers to the control of cognition. Thomas
(2006) circumscribes this as “mindfulness” and considers it as the key for turning knowledge and abilities into
action.
Drawing on Lussier (2004), Iqbal, et al., (2012) conclude that the use of traits, skills and behaviours in
different ways and combinations allows for several leadership styles. How the manor leadership is put into
practise depends mainly on the emotional intelligence of the individual (Goleman, et al., 2010; Gardner &
Stough, 2002) and on the cultural background of the leader and the follower. The differences from country to
country have been identified through the GLOBE project (Chhokar, et al., 2007) and need also to be taken into
account.
Hofstede (1980) pointed out that culture predicts the understanding within this group. The influence of
culture on leadership has logically increased with globalisation, leading to a greater mix of various cultures
within the management of MNE. Against this backdrop it is even more important to be aware that most leading
scholars of global leadership are rooted in Western culture (Takahashi, et al., 2012). Chen & An (2009) have
tabulated the different understandings of leadership competences between the Eastern “tao of Leadership”, based
on Buddhism, Confucianism, Hinduism, Shintoism and Taoism, and the Western values. The crucial effect this
could have for leadership styles has been convincingly shown in the case of a Japanese Enterprise by (Black &
Morrison, 2012), where the Japanese top management and the native leaders of the subsidiaries abroad
completely misinterpreted the behaviour of each other.
Another example of cultural influence on leadership styles has been labelled “transformational
leadership”. It has won prominence within the last two decades as research and practise have changed from task
orientation towards the relationship between leader and follower based on the Leader-Member exchange theory
(LMX) (Yukl, 2010; Avolio, et al., 2003). A comprehensive overview about transformational leadership is given
by Bass (1999). The transformational leadership style has proven more effective (Gardner & Stough, 2002;
Takahashi, et al., 2012) than transactional or other styles based on Western understanding. In Japan, by contrast,
transformational leadership has not been successful due to the cultural understanding of the leader-follower
relationship (Ishikawa, 2012).
While Chen & An (2009) aim at a balance of - in their opinion conflicting - influences from both sides,
similar to the Eastern philosophy of yin and yang, Takahashi, et al., (2012, p. 537) confirm “…that leadership
traits, two types of leadership behaviours, the contingency effects of environmental factors, the quality of leader–
member dyadic relationships, and leadership effects as a transformation agent will work for organizations
operating anywhere in the world.”
All statements above are related to emotional communication thought to stimulate the involved actors
(Föll, 2007). There are differences when social media communication is text-based (Wang, et al., 2009) such as
reduced cultural differences in communication style and “talkativeness” (2009, p. 675). This may also effect the
leadership styles.
All over the literature above has proven the importance of capabilities, summarized as global mindset.
Further it has been identified, that global mindset is not a static state leading to the need of development as
logical consequence.
Global Talent Management

Following the chapter above which focused on the leaders’ personality, this section reviews literature
dealing with the development of human global leadership potential. This includes the following approaches: (a)
finding & winning the talent that possess the required capabilities for successful global leadership and (b)
measures securing the further development of (existing) talent. Such are the typical duties of the (corporate)
human resources management (Farndale, et al., 2010) when dealing with global talent management (GTM).
Tarique & Schuler (2010, p. 124) deplore a missing consensus on the exact meaning of GTM and define
it as follows: “… most broadly, global talent management is about systematically utilizing IHRM activities
(complementary HRM policies and policies) to attract, develop, and retain individuals with high levels of human
capital (e.g., competency, personality, motivation) consistent with the strategic directions of the multinational
enterprise in a dynamic, highly competitive, and global environment”. GTM in the meaning of global leadership
development (Caligiuri & Tarique, 2012) is used in some of the literature interchangeably with international
human resources management (IHRM), instead of seeing it as an particular aspect of the latter as described by
Collings & Mellahi (2009). Both concepts have in common that they gained prominence in research and
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practical management due to the globalization (UNCTAD, 2009, p. 6) of business. Human resources
management, however, could keep the pace in sourcing sufficient successful candidates for the global tasks (e.g.
Tarique & Schuler, 2010; Caligiuri, 2006; Burkus, 2012; Service & Kennedy, 2012).
Conger & OŃeil (2012, p. 56), for example, state that “often, the executive team itself lacks
international experience, and therefore senior leaders have little appreciation for its value“. Conger & OŃeil
(2012) have conducted a meta-analysis of studies and research papers to identify a framework for global
leadership development. In a second step they correlated their findings with the results of interviews with senior
HR executives. Conger & OŃeil (2012) identify repatriation, a lack of clearly defined assessment practice and
an adjusted approach to the development of global leadership instead of using one universal framework for all
leaders as serious pitfalls.
The lack of a systematic approach is deplored by Goodman (2011) as well. He has been involved in
many global leadership development programs of enterprises listed in the Fortune 500 for over 25 years. He
advises not to take over complete university based (scientific aligned) programs without adjusting them to the
individual needs or critically reflecting the progress of development and process they should be applied to.
Obviously the “global” part in GTM refers to internationally active enterprises operating in a “global”
environment. It is not clearly been established, however, whether the talents to be managed need to be (potential)
global leaders or just to be employed in global operations. Globalization in this research field is often linked to
fluctuation of talent and the migration of potentials (Tarique & Schuler, 2010).
To begin with the sourcing of talent, it seems imperative to define at first the criteria of what precisely
to look for. Conger & OŃeil (2012, p. 53) point out that “well-chosen job assignments” are an effective starting
point for identification and development of talent. According to them, enterprises should investigate candidates
on all levels down to the front desks who are already active across geographic and cultural boundaries. To
identify those potentials Conger & OŃeil (2012) propose to look for criteria which could be assessed using
empirically validated measurement instruments, such as catalytic learning capability, entrepreneurial spirit,
cultural literacy or an extended time perspective.
Other research has uncovered that global leaders have significantly higher conscientiousness scores and
significantly lower neuroticism scores on the ´Big Five´-personality test; participated more in teams that were
spread in geographical terms; that they had long-term international assignments; or were mentored by people
from a different culture (Caligiuri & Tarique, 2012). Story (2011) backs up Caligiuri´s (2006) findings by
presenting her approach for global leadership development. Within her work, she emphasizes the value of global
mindset, defining it as being composed of cognitive abilities and openness, a self-authored identity and the
willingness to adapt to cultural worldviews. Caligiuri, et al., (2006) developed the “attitudinal and behavioural
openness scale” as suitable a measurement. In addition, the use of biometrical data may offer a valuable
contribution to a more valid measurement (Bücker & Poutsma, 2010).
Conger & OŃeil (2012) close their suggestion for talent search with an investigating into the
candidate’s motivation to lead in a cross-cultural context, which they suggest to verify by using a 360-degree
review. This would enable to gain understanding how potential leaders elaborate on their environment, including
how they affect different to stakeholders from different cultures.
Is the required talent found, it needs to be developed further to fulfil all requirements for successful
global leadership. An overview of capabilities and the related levels of mutability, including sample for
developmental interventions is presented by Caligiuri (2006) and shown below.
As far as global talent management attempts to conceptualize the below listed elements of cross-cultural
stable competences (personal characteristics and abilities) and dynamic competences (knowledge and skills),
there is at least a common understanding about the suitability of some instruments for training and development,
such as cross-cultural education programs. (Comparing Tarique & Schuler, 2010 with Youssef & Luthans, 2012,
and Caligiuri, 2006).
An actual challenge for leadership development is reported by Javidan & Walker (2012). They note that
at present the group of leaders between 40 and 50 years have the lowest score on global mindset. This poses a
serious problem as in particular the psychological capital (Javidan & Walker, 2012; Caligiuri, 2006), which
Osland (2012) refers to as threshold traits, is difficult to develop. This is due to the fact that cross-cultural
competence built on time consuming experience, resulting in older leaders. At the same time, age influences the
personal development potential. Above 30 years of age, cognitive capability decline (Salthouse, 2009).
Crawford (2004), too, documents that the influences of age on the learning process and the capabilities
(e.g. physical changes, health and stress) is evident. Yet he points out that it is too simple to consider age as
either a general positive or negative factor (Crawford, 2004).
Lang & Rybnikova (2010) have researched the development of requirements for German leaders,
concluding that intercultural experience weighs heavier than professional competence. Based on the hypothesis
of Zajonc (1968), they propose to start intercultural HR development at the earliest possible stage, starting with
secondary and tertiary education (school or university), as the related capability development is difficult, time-
consuming and mostly experience based.
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Lang & Rybnikova (2010) consider role plays and the simulation of critical situations as very helpful
for the individual development as well as for the creation of cultural awareness. It should not be overlooked,
however, that development is not only a service provided by the human resources department, but also a task and
an obligation for the global leaders themselves. Bücker & Poutsma (2010) have included this in their model of
global management competencies. They use the term of “management” synonymously with “leadership” and this
is not unusual in cognate research (Jokinen, 2005). The learning ability, titled “meta-cognition”, represents a
(pro)active and dynamic learning process. Meta-cognition builds on the adaption of knowledge (cognitive
processing) and motivational processing (Bücker & Poutsma, 2010). The latter “…involves how culturally
different self-concepts influence what is desirable and thus, varying forces on preferred outcomes and ways of
behaving“ (Thomas, 2006, p. 84).
From the above discussion of key terms and their interrelation we propose the following useful grid
shown in figure 1.
Global leadership as a duty and its development are constituent part of process orientation. Global
mindset and global talent management, by contrast, are components focusing on individual capabilities of
managers. Hence ´global leadership´ and ´global mindset´ form a pair while ´global talent management´ and
´global leadership development´ express alteration. The literature aimed to deliver a deeper understanding of the
different elements and key terms used in the field of global leadership as circumscribed before. In the course of
the literature review missing common definitions and mixed use of key terms have been identified once more.
The categorisation introduced for the literature figure 1 has been proven as helpful tool to sort scientific work by
its content instead. Furthermore, the author assumes that each area is characterized by underlying mechanisms.
Thus this will be used to synthesize the different models and theories existing in the field of global leadership.
Consequently, the intended meta-framework in figure 1 mention the central terms defined as follows: ´process
orientated’ will be shortening to the category name of ´process´. ‘Capabilities’ and ‘development’ are used
without change. ´Status quo´ will be renamed as ´state´. ´Global leadership´ will be used for the process and
´global leadership development´ for the development of the process.
The obvious importance of capabilities suggests placing global mindset at the top left in the grid as the
starting point. Therefore, the figure is mirrored from left to right.
The global leader will be added as new element in the centre where several fields intersect. He or she is
the driver of the process (interacting with environment) and, at the same time, the object to either being
investigated or developed (in the sense of influencing the insights of the leader).
Hence the literature review already revealed that global leadership is not a mosaic of four or five more
or less independent parts. Quite on the contrary, there are strong interrelations between the sections which need
to be taken into account in the framework as well.
Literature dealing with the capabilities, for example, has convincingly shown such a strong interrelation
between different sections: The descriptions of skills among the capabilities relates clearly to a process of
instruction. In general, the capabilities drive the leadership process. In yet another way the capabilities influence
global talent management: The individual characteristics of a potential global leader are essential metrics in
talent choice while the quality of the election process defines the available talent pool. Understanding
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capabilities enables to choose efficient development tools and efficient development, in its turn, increases the
global mindset.
The influence of social media is an example how evolution requires process development. The
development of the process, e.g. the utilisation of social media as communication and leadership tool in virtual
teams requires a development of the knowledge and skills of the leader. This may in turn exert influence on the
organizational structure, demanding action in global talent management.
However, it has not been documented that there are direct mutual influences between global mindset
and process development. The same is true for the relations between the global leadership process and global
talent management. These are mediated by the sections between. These findings have been synthesized in the
illustration of the embryonic framework in figure 1 above. The embryonic framework will be the starting point
for the synthesis to follow. How this synthesis is prepared and operated is discussed in the next chapter.
Overall, the literature review has shown that the global leadership research has been dominated by
studies discussing capabilities and its development. Occasionally, ‘global leadership’ is discussed as a process as
well, but there is a lack of research for the development of this operational process. That said, the review
suggests the suitability of the thematic grid or the embrionic framework (presented in figure 1), since all papers
could be assigned to one of the four sections with absolute certainty.
The embrionic framework presented previously in figure 1 also presents the main interrelation between
the sections in form of two-way arrows. The verb describing the main interrelations can be used to formulate
questions in the process of identifying a papers relation to the main categories., e.g.: Does the paper discuss how
a global mindset is ´built´ (up)? Does it discuss what ´drives´ the global leadership process?
It is interesting to note here, that while a considerable overlap was found, none of the papers have covered all
sections of the grid. Hence no framework or theory was found that covers all aspects of ‘global leadership’. The
latter finding underscores the possible relevance of a meta-framework which collates all existing theories and
frameworks.
METHODOLOGY
This section outlines our methodology, how we planned and conducted the analytical approach and how
we organized and present our findings. Unlike other reviews of the global leadership literature (e.g. Osland, Bird,
Mendenhall & Osland, 2006; Khilji et al., 2010; Osland et al., 2012) our review focuses on global leadership
definitions, process models, theories.
Planning the systematic review

We began by searching journal articles dating from 1993 to 2013 commencing with Spencer (1993)
which was the first paper to investigate empirically global leadership. By adopting a fixed time frame we were
able to identify a reasonable number of studies. Our aim was to analyse systematically (Jones, Coviello &
Tang, 2011; Laufs & Schwens, 2014) the definitions, philosophies, process models, theories thematically in
order to provide a reliable, transparent and scientific overview of extant research on the subject area (Thorpe,
2005; Pettigrew & Roberts, 2006). To recap, this work intends to deliver a meta-framework to assess the
different philosophies and key terms in relation to global leadership (as an overarching term).
We reviewed 185 articles in total including some chapter/book articles reviewing global leadership (see
Table 2, ‘Others’ - books, chapters in books). The latter helped to sense-check our own review and pointed to
gaps in the literature that had already been spotted.
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Search, selection and exclusion

To conduct the synthesis the following steps will be carried out: The field of scientific studies about
global leadership will be reviewed by extensive internet and database research. Databases accessed are Wiley,
Palgrave Macmillan, Elsevier, Emerald, EBSCO, udini.com, googlescholar, JSTOR, ProQuest,
disexpress.umi.com and udini.com. In addition library & bookshop services are used to evaluate printed material
(e-books included), which is not available through direct download. As search criteria “global leader” or “global
leadership” in title in combination with “theory” or “framework” in title, keywords, or abstract will be applied.
We utilized these above mentioned databases: Relevant articles identified are published within international
business, leadership and management domains.
In stage one, we searched the search words “global leadership” that helped us either admit and exclude
articles. Then, we integrated theory and concepts from global leadership. Based on abstract reading the papers
will be analyzed regarding the degree to which they comply with the following quality requirements:
a) Minimum the abstract is available or available information enables to prove below given requirements
free of charge in one of the mentioned resources.
b) Matter of subject/result is “global leadership” in a broader sense related to business matters or offers
transfer to it (e.g. not dealing with historic leaders, country economic or political leadership within the
global community).
c) The methodology is obvious and comprehensible. The paper follows obviously the rules of academic
research.
d) The context in which the study took place is transparent
In stage two, the following research criteria were chosen to incorporate special keywords such as: Actual
185 papers have been reviewed (abstract analysis, if not deeper analyzed before), representing 474 hits of
database search according to the table 2 above. Those 185 papers (all years) have been categorized by their
possible contribution to the research subject/methodology. These categories have been:
(a) “developing global leadership framework or theory”,
(b) “evidence and or support for global leadership framework or theory”,
(c) “support of general understanding of key term and or additional information or context”,
(d) “nearby key term”, and
(e) “related term / others”.
The Figure 2 presents the actual statistics of the findings (without 40 publications that have been rejected due to
incomplete information or being not accessible):
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In Stage 3: To select best the most relevant studies, the following steps will be conducted: Based on
the abstract reading, the applied methods can be related to one of the following three types: (1) explanative-
theoretical, (2) explanative-empirical, or (3) explorative-empirical. The author based his decision not to limit the
choice to empirical papers only on the fact that the number of empirical papers available would be insufficient to
gain the required overview.
A similar combination has been employed by Rialp-Criado, et al. (2002). As shown in the figure above,
search terms referring to global leadership processes and developments produced twelve empirical papers only.
In total there would be no more than 27 if empiricism would be the only criteria employed. The decision to add
explorative-theoretical but not explanative papers, too, reflects the intent to investigate global leadership
frameworks and theories.
The criterion of publication date for empirical studies is not seen as relevant by the author. It is expected
that all empirical studies can be analysed regarding their contribution to the contemporary understanding of
“global leadership”, even if this understanding differs from the one prevalent at the time these studies have been
executed. So did Takahashi, et al., (2012). More importantly, clear definitions often should have been provided,
detailed data should be accessible and the environmental conditions under which they have been collected should
be made transparent.
For explanative-theoretical papers not been based on empirical data, by contrast, a time limit has been
set. Studies dating before 2004 have not been included since during the literature review it became obvious that
relevant publications of the recent period (2010-12) mostly refer to papers produced within the time range
between 2004 and 2012.
In order to add a qualitative criterion the author uses the ranking of German Academic Association for
Business Research for international journals (VHB, 2011). This ranking is based on the average scientific level
of journal authors and the scientific requirements of its publisher as analysed by experts in the field. It is setup on
the VHB-JOURQUAL index value (from 1 (=very low) to 10 (=very high) divided in rating categories from A+
down to E. The letter C presents the value from 6 to 7, B from 7 to 8, A from 8 to 9, and A+ all above 9
(Schrader & Hennig-Thurau, 2009)). For this synthesis level of C is set as minimum requirement to ensure good
quality. This effect in addition the type of publication as only journals will be considered.
Finally, the relevance judged from the abstract reading is used to exclude papers focusing on different
related terms (categorized as “E”) and papers which due to missing information could not be classified.
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Procedure for thematic analysis

After completing our three stages outlined above we carried out an interpretive synthesis of the content
(Sandelowski & Barroso, 2003; Walsh & Downe, 2005; Weed, 2008) with three researchers independently
reading each paper for meaning and interpreting the author(s)’s fundamental concept, focus and stated purpose,
research questions, key argument, methodology and constructs of the phenomena being studied. Our inductive
approach is based on a systematic process of interpretative synthesis (Sandelowski & Barroso, 2003; Walsh &
Downe, 2005; Weed, 2008, Jones et al.; 2011). Based on Braun & Clarke (2006) grounded theory (Glaser &
Corbin 1998) and thematic analysis we adopted similar procedures for coding „themes‟ or coding from data. The
thematic analysis takes the concept of supporting assertions with data from grounded theory (Charmaz, 2006). In
our process of thematic coding, we derived themes from the articles as it is our data material (Braun & Clarke,
2006; Thorpe et al., 2005, Jones 2011).
Applying the above described criteria resulted in the selection of 18 papers which are discussed in detail
in the results of the synthesis in next chapter. With reference to Pawson (2002) the following criteria are used for
analysis and tabulation:
1. How is the key term (e.g. global leadership or equivalent) defined?
2. Which theory is developed or applied?
3. What is the underlying mechanism or basic theory upon which the newly developed model or theory draws?
4. Which form of evidence is documented, including statements rendering the applied methods? A critical review
of the selection criteria for the sample and its significance are included at this stage.
5. What is the overall conclusion (in terms of a critical review of the contribution to the body of research)?
On the basis of this review of studies and their analysis according to the above described stages, the
underlying mechanisms are identified and cumulated in the meta-framework.
FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS - ANALYSIS OF SELECTED STUDIES

We decided to take a closer look to empirical studies and selected these 18 studies in-depth.
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Definitions:
The starting point of the current study has been the degree of confusion about the term global
leadership. This observation is confirmed by the selected papers and how they have defined global leadership
and discussed the key terms in their current study.
A surprising outcome of the current synthesis is that 40% of the papers do not offer any definition of
global leadership at all. Among them are four empirical research papers (Caligiuri & Tarique, 2012; Chandler,
2008; Gallagher, et al., 2008; Simmonds & Tsui, 2010; Yeung & Ready, 1995) for which a definition would
have been an essential requirement for understanding the creation of the sample or for an evaluation of their
relevance for the global leadership discussion. The two theoretical works in sample are those of Smith &
Rayment (2007) and Rabotin (2008). In those papers it is left to the reader to guess what he or she understands as
´global leadership´ or what it means to be a ´global leader´.
The definitions being used range from vague (Steyrer, et al., 2006) to detailed (Mendenhall, et al., 2012
b); and from static (Robinson & Harvey, 2008) to procedural (Bird, et al., 2010). Reviewing the definitions in
their relation to the key terms (i.e., global leadership process or development, global mindset or global talent
management) does little in the way of facilitating a general viable definition. There is only one common
dominator across the field and that is the issue of cross-cultural influences. Thus a review and analysis of the
definitions is not sufficient to provide a common understanding of the concept, the lack of conceptual clarity and
thus confusion about the term of global leadership is confirmed once more.
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Indeed, reviewing the definitions of global leadership served only as a starting point for the critical
evaluation of the analysed studies. Beyond that, questions of methodology and data collection are likewise
important criteria. The analysis of the methodology of theoretical papers has thus been another obvious
challenge. In most cases (Mendenhall, et al., 2012 b; Robinson & Harvey, 2008; Rabotin, 2008; Smith &
Rayment, 2007) neither the methodology is explicitly explained obvious, nor the selection principle for sources
and literature made transparent. In the cases of Rabotin (2008), and Steers, et al. (2012), the studies are written in
an essayistic mode without quoting relevant findings, references or evidences. As a matter of fact, the
qualification criteria of the journals show a “c” and a “b” ranking nonetheless.
In some papers lacking clear definitions of global leadership the relevance of the sample cannot be
checked and these papers thus need to be seen critical. Chandler (2008), for example, chose a sample which due
to size and criteria does not promise any reliable relevance. To investigate the influence of heritage culture she
interviewed one informant per culture. Moreover, here interviewees enjoyed mostly primary and secondary
school education in the States, where they also finished their studies. Not a single informant had lived in his or
her home country for a period of time since departing to the States. This leads to the request if the informant
represents their heritage culture as no evidence for a stratified purposeful sampling method (Creswell, et al.,
2003) is given; compared to the work of Kim & Starcher (2012).
Content-synthesis according to the framework sections

Above the embryonic version of the meta-framework has been introduced intending to support term
clarification by grouping the existing literature about global leadership in general. Within this chapter those
scientific journal papers dealing with global leadership frameworks or theories will be synthesized by their main
research subject to prove further validation of the meta-framework. Each paragraph will close with a short recap
of the superior topics being discussed. Those topics will be used to simplify the intersection of the underlying
mechanisms in the next chapter.
In relation to global leadership as a process the works of Mendenhall, et al., (2012 b) and Robinson &
Harvey (2008) delivered frameworks as starting point. Mendenhall, et al., (2012 b) build a frame that describes
the process dimensions without getting into detailed tasks. Robinson & Harvey (2008) get more specific in
discussing the underlying mechanisms to create resonance within followers. One expression can be job tension.
A matter for which Gallagher, et al., (2008) contribute helpful information to deal with it from a leadership
perspective. Robinson & Harvey (2008) and Smith & Rayment (2007), as well as Steers, et al., (2012) support
with their papers the use of company culture and values as a framework to operate leadership and avoid
intimidation, e.g. through job tension. Beside process specifications and company culture & values the papers in
this section discuss the external influence to the leadership process, which is included in the complexity
dimension of Mendenhall, et al., (2012 b). Dorfman, et al., (2012) and Steyrer, et al., (2006) point out how
relevance and stability – partly even defending transformation processes of leadership – are driven by local
culture and society. Avoiding or closing the gap between the leader’s behaviour (driven by his/her domestic
culture) and the cultural endorsed expectations of the operating location, respectively followers and stakeholders,
is seen as the key for the process of global leadership (Dorfman, et al., 2012, p. 514). Thus the global leadership
process has proven to be a section suitable to synthesis papers content wise. For the synthesis of the underlying
mechanism the author will refer to the above listed superior topics of (a) process specification, (b) company
values & culture (c) environmental influence in the next sub-chapter. Global process development, however, is
not dealt with in the analysed documents. One explanation can be found in the statement of Osland, et al. (2006,
p. 214) that a majority of scholars discusses global leadership as „a process of personal transformation …
[therefore ] it is likely that global leadership development is … rather a non-linear process whereby deep-seated
change in competencies and world view takes places in the process of experiential overlays over time”. Thus it is
not discussed as the evolution or progressive development of an operational process, but as the development of
the individual which this paper refers to as global talent management.
` As far as global mindset is concerned, Bird, et al., (2010) deliver a core topic in the discussion of global
leaders capabilities with their construct of intercultural competence. Those competences define the potential of
the leader to deal with the culturally endorsed expectations lined out in the preceding paragraph. This potential is
seen as the key for effectiveness, bridging global mindset and global leadership process (Osland, et al., 2006, p.
214). Caligiuri & Tarique (2012, p. 619) support this with the results of their empirical study. They conclude that
the cross-cultural competencies of cultural flexibility and tolerance of ambiguity mediate the influence of
developmental experiences and personality characteristics on personal work performance. How these
qualifications are gained is explained by Ready & Yeung (1995), Chandler (2008) and Rabotin (2008) in more
detail and corresponding to Caligiuri & Tarique (2012). One of the most interesting empiric studies on
capabilities of global leaders is the work of Kets de Vries, et al., (2004). Kets de Vries, et al., analyse - based on
testing 360°-feedback-instruments and including a clinical approach - the (psychological) insights of
characterizing (successful) global leaders. What distinguishes this work from other empiric studies is the precise
description and selection of the sample group. Kets de Vries, et al., (2004) collect a great amount of details about
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the informers which allows them to better understand the variables within their findings. As this work presents
evaluation methods to uncover potential global leaders it links up with the next paragraph of global talent
management.
Osland’s pyramid model (2012) could not be included into the sample for the synthesis due to the
selection criteria, yet it has been used widely by the papers under scrutiny (e.g. Bird, et al., (2010). It is providing
a good overview of the capabilities and would thus perfectly match the requirements in this section.
Superior topics presented in the global mindset section for the review of the underlying mechanism are thus (d)
intercultural competence, (e) effectiveness and (f) qualifications (understood here as an overarching term for the
capabilities of the leader summarized as global mindset).
In global talent management qualifications, too, are relevant to identify potential candidates capable to
take over global leadership positions, e.g. as Hess & Bandyopadhyay (2010) discuss it in their gender related
work. With her theoretically founded ´Developmental model for Global leaders´ Story (2011) provides a good
starting point to explore the field. According to her model the required qualifications of global mindset, self-
authored identity and cultural adaptation are depending on psychological capital. This should have implications
for the practical application of training methods (Story, 2011, p. 376). An understanding of the underlying
mechanism of successful application of any development program or service should be the basis for any training
program. Simmonds & Tsui (2010, p. 537) have shown this convincingly in their research and suggest a
combined mechanism of senior executive-taught workshops, 360°-feedback and action learning.
Yeung & Ready (1995) have opted for an empirical approach when analysing qualifications required
and related training methods by a vote count from a sample of 1,200 middle managers in ten major global
cooperation. They conclude that all kind of practical training methods have been favoured by their sample group.
Understanding global talent management as an overarching term instead of internal function within a company
allows enlarging the development of individuals to early education phases. The relevance of such an approach
can be seen in the work of Kim & Starcher (2012), connecting talent management to childhood education. Their
paper includes as discussing of new social forms of family behaviour, in which the traditional roles of parents
have been changed and IP based tools become more and more a standard in a children’s environment meant to
maintain heritage values. Caligiuri & Tarique (2009) discuss the relevance of cross-cultural experience in
developing talents and build a link to expatriation as one of the roots in global leadership research.
Thus the terms (g) ´training/education´ and, as mentioned in the paragraph above, (f) ´qualification´,
bridging the sections of global mindset and global talent management, will be used for the following review of
underlying mechanisms as well.
In sum, the grouping of papers section by section turned out to be a productive as the papers
complemented each other within the respective sections, and contours of a wholesale picture of global leadership
became visible. No single paper provided contradictory statements excluding it from a possible synthesis. What
is more, the papers added up to each other in a way which (partly) allowed compensating for incoherent
argumentation or the lack of valid results on the basis due to insufficient samples or methodology. E.g. the work
of Kim & Starcher (2012) proves evidence for their findings just among native Korean leaders. The studies of
Chandler (2008), though, based on an insufficient sample group, confirm Kim’s & Starcher’s findings and allow
for a broader generalization. In addition to that, such findings are confirmed by Caligiuri & Tarique (2009), too.
Synthesis of the underlying mechanisms

As a final part of the synthesis the underlying mechanisms will be reviewed. In the section above seven
superior topics representing the main themes have been introduced: (a) process specification, (b) company values
& culture, (c) environmental influence, (d) intercultural competence, (e) qualification, (f) effectiveness and, last
but not least, (g) training/education. These superior topics will be used to support and simplify the presentation
of the related underlying mechanism.
The authors of the 18 papers under scrutiny have identified 15 different underlying mechanisms in total.
They are listed in alphabetic order in the table 8 following. The dominance of psychological theories is obvious,
as there are just three derived from other fields (contingency theory, model of complexity and systems theory).
From a statistical point of view, three to five underlying mechanism could be identified for each of the most of
the seven arguments (except company values & culture and environmental influence). Most authors limited
themselves to the application of one or two underlying mechanism, however.
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Taking into consideration that the number of papers allotted to each section is nearly equal (global
leadership process: seven papers including two frameworks; global mindset: five papers including two
frameworks and global talent management: six papers and one framework) it turns out that, contrary to
expectations, the frequency with which the different underlying mechanisms are applied is so inhomogeneous:
With a top count of nine cases the social learning theory has been applied in all three sections. Implicit
leadership theory comes next, being applied four times. It is followed by the concept of psychological capital,
applied three times. Both were used in all sections as well.
Table above lists in addition to the theories of the underlying mechanisms the supported superior topic
and study it refers to which will be discussed in the following according to the ranking of appliance and
alphabetic order in second level.
Albert Bandura's (1977) social cognitive theory is quite prominently represented among the theories of
underlying mechanisms. The theory is based on three drivers for development: (a) person, (b) environment and
(c) behaviour (Boyce, 2011, p. 32) and has therefore been applied in most papers of the global talent
management section (Caligiuri & Tarique, 2009; Chandler, 2008; Kim & Starcher, 2012; Simmonds & Tsui,
2010; Story, 2011). As it contains elements of experience based learning it drives intercultural competence
(Caligiuri & Tarique, 2012; Kets de Vries, et al., 2004) as well. In the work of Steyrer, et al., (2006)
transformational leadership is one concept including this theory. In addition its relevance is documented by
Steyrer, et al., (2006) when discussing the sustainability of local cultural influence on leadership patterns. For
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Chandler (2008) its effectiveness is based on the capability to learn from and to adjust to the environment of the
leader
The implicit leadership theory draws on Lord & Maher (1991) and is mainly based on the argument
that leadership is in the “eye of the beholder” (Avolio, et al., 2003, p. 280), meaning that leadership is defined by
how observers understand it. This affects the company values and cultures due the way the leader representation
it (Steers, et al., 2012, p. 481). Furthermore it influences the process of leadership (Chhokar, et al., 2007, p. 50;
Dorfman, 2004, pp. 505-6; Chandler, 2008). As the leader is seen as a role model the implicit leadership theory
affects training and education directly as well indirectly through the value proposition (Yeung & Ready, 1995).
Luthans, et al., (2007, p. 3) define psychological capital as “…an individual´s positive psychological state of
development and is characterized by: (1) having confidence (self-efficacy) to take and put in the necessary effort
to succeed at challenging tasks; (2) making a positive attribution (optimism) about succeeding now and in the
future; (3) persevering towards goals and, when necessary, redirecting paths to goals (hope) in order to succeed
and (4) when beset by problems and adversity; sustaining and bouncing back and even beyond (resiliency) to
attain success”. The definition above describes well the attitudes required from leaders and is therefore applied
by Robinson & Harvey (2008) to describe how leaders gain resonance. It can even be found in Bird, et al.,
(2010) who treat it as the foundation of self-management focusing intercultural competences. Story (2011)
recommends to base leadership development programs on it. Therefore this theory is present in all sections and
confirms the latter’s mutual interrelation.
Graves (2003, p. 1) explains the Double-Helix Model of Adult Biopsychosocial Systems
Development stating that "the psychosocial development of the human being is an unfolding or emergent
process marked by the progressive subordination of older behavioural systems to newer, higher order
behavioural systems. Man tends, normally, to change his psychosocial conception of his problems and how to
meet them as the conditions of his existence change. He tends, as he solved each successive, hierarchically
ordered series of human problems to move from one Level of Human Existence to the next. And when he so
moves, he sees the human problems with which he is faced in a new and different light." This model describes
processes which apply to both leaders and followers as they face new challenges every day, experiences thus
drives the process of leadership (Robinson & Harvey, 2008, p. 476) and proves the leader´s qualification (Kets
de Vries, et al., 2004, pp. 478-479). A summary of this theory can be found in Beck & Cowan (1996). Caligiuri
& Tarique built on the contact hypothesis (Dovidio, 2001; Dovidio, et al., 2005) in both their works, discussing
it on the one hand as a matter of effectiveness stating that experience with (contact to) other cultures support
extroversion and therefore reduce caveats (Caligiuri & Tarique, 2012, p. 619). On the other hand, the same
extroversion is analysed as variable for the individuals success to gain profit from cross-cultural development
programs (Caligiuri & Tarique, 2009, p. 334) and is therefore linked to qualifications.
Hess & Bandyopadhyay (2010) base their work on the the Gender Egalitarianism´ model (Emrich, et
al., 2004) and identify an higher leadership potential of women in the future based on their higher degree of
emotional intelligence (Hess & Bandyopadhyay, 2010, p. 185). Salovey & Mayer (1989, p. 185) refer to
emotional intelligence as “a set of skills hypothesized to contribute to the accurate appraisal and expression of
emotion in oneself and in others, the effective regulation of emotion in self and others, and the use of feelings to
motivate, plan, and achieve in one's life".
The cognitive (moral) development theory is based on the stage theory of Kohlberg (1971) . It aims to
explain patterns of thinking which control an individual’s behaviour in his or her social environment. An updated
theory was presented by Kohlberg &Hersch (1977). The problem solving strategies that individuals apply is
understood to be dependent on their actual moral capacity, which in its turn is built through life experience and
education and therefore influenced by the social and cultural environment. Six stages are paired in three levels
(pre-conventional, conventional and post-conventional) (Turner, et al., 2002, pp. 304-305). Robinson & Harvey
(2008) use this theory to explain resonance patterns of followers.
Hobfoll & Shirom, (2001, pp. 60-61) describe the conservation of resources theory as emphasizing
“aspects of stress that other theories do not. Conservation of resources theory states that people overweight the
effects of loss compared to gain. Even when resources are adequate, loss of resources has impact. It further
postulates that loss of resources creates increased vulnerability to future loss. Other stress theories tend to
emphasize a more situation-by-situation approach rather than seeing the stress process as part of individuals’ or
organizations’ development”. Much more facets of this theory are discussed by Hobfoll (1989; 2001), which
Gallagher, et al., (2008) used also in their work about job tension as leadership tool summarizing the effects on
team efficiency.
The contingency theory emphasises immediate reactions to a given situation, defined through internal
and external influences (=contingency) instead of focussing on best practice in terms of organisational structures.
Against this backdrop it confidently suggests to hand over decision competence to sub(ordinate) units (Morgan,
2006).
Mendenhall, et al., (2012 b) use complexity as one of the dimensions within their construction. They
base themselves on the model of complexity (dynamic complexity) as Wood (1986, p. 80) described it, without
arriving at identic conclusions. Wood (1986, p. 80) built his model of total complexity on the three arguments of
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(a) component, (b) coordination and (c) dynamics to define the required knowledge and skills individuals need to
perform. The other two dimensions (´flow´ and ´presence´) of Mendenhalls´, et al., (2012 b) are a further
development of the model representing the influence of the ´global´ area.
While Emerson (1976) use a construct of social exchange theory to explain development (or change) as
opposed to stability in societies. This approach was based on the assumption that all human relationships are
based on a subjective cost-benefit analysis. Dorfman, et al, (2012, p. 505) refer to in their interpretation of
culturally endorsed implicit leadership. They also base themselves on Hollander (1990, p. 1157), who described
his social exchange approach as suggesting that “voluntary cooperative behaviour is motivated by social
approval, which is conceptualized as an emotional activity.”
Boardman & Sauser (2008, p. 2) describe systems theory as a process starting when the logical
decision capacity is under risk due to emotional or stress effects, doctrine or other situational influences. The
latter two could be based on cultural influence, e.g. adhere to religious principle. Smith and Rayment (2007) call
it “the spiritual part”. Spiritualism could be seen as an underlying mechanism itself (Liu, 2007, p. 2). ´Systems
thinking´ aspires to make the sense of multiplicity arguments and enable compromises and, thus, enable global
leaders to deal with complexity in decision processes. Transferring theories affecting multiple content arguments
into the embryonic framework leads to the presentation in the next figure.
Discussion
Global leadership is a well-known term all over (Steers, et al., 2012), without being globally defined in
a common way (Reiche & Mendenhall, 2012, p. 268; Story, 2011, p. 376). This work has presented more than 20
different definitions (e.g. Table 1 and Table 7). None of them could be seen as wrong, but obviously the
formulations have been polished to suit to the sense of the study (Conger & OŃeil, 2012, p. 53), kept vague
(Robinson & Harvey, 2008, p. 473; Steers, et al., 2012, p. 479) or not be defined intending the authors presumed
it self-explaining (Chandler, 2008; Gallagher, et al., 2008). In addition ´global´ has been left as dimension
without concrete, or at least flexible (Mendenhall, et al., 2012 b), scale. Nevertheless, it has been argued as
synonym for an increased complexity comparing to domestic leadership.
However, most of definitions can be seen as incomplete or not precise enough to present an all-
encompassing construct. The author presumes as one reason the effort of delivering a compact definition,
consistent of two or three sentences, instead of defining it as an overarching construct. The meta-framework
would enable to build such a model as presented in figure 14 below.
The synthesis has proven the feasibility for three of the four sections of the embryonic framework
(figure 10) in the way that all studies independent of their focus suit to the results of others. In addition the
content analysis and much more the synthesis of underlying mechanisms has uncovered the interrelation between
the sectors. E.g. reviewing effectiveness it is has been documented that capabilities enable the leader to “drive”
the leadership process. On the other side, to run a process a range of skills and other capabilities is required.
03.03.2019 20:22:00 23
Similar do ´qualification´ bridge between global mindset (what leaders need to bring with them) and global
talent management (what kind of talent management support and education is most successful to develop the
potential of the leader). The underlying mechanisms of implicit leadership theory, social cognitive theory and
ćoncept of psychological capital´ prove evidence that the connection is not only between two sections but
between all connected ones.
The categories of capabilities and process have been taken over from the embryonic version but refer
now more to the source of influence: Capabilities are seen as the ínsights´ of the global leader and engine of the
process, while the process interact bi-directional with the environment (driving change by focusing followers,
adapt to environment, respecting stakeholders, and be developed by global talent management).
This is expressed by bi-directional arrows: The darker side stands for the dominant influencing direction. E.g.
global mindset is driving the process of global leadership resulting in change. Change requires development to
deal with the new situation and lead to new requirements for global talent management. Global leadership
process defines the need of global mindset which results in the task requirements on global talent management
bringing in the resources for the global leadership process.
` Global leadership in the meta-framework is based on several, most psychological theories explaining
the complexity and operationalization of the process. The most dominant theories presented in this work are
those of social cognitive learning theory, implicit leadership and the concept of psychological capital being
found in all three sections. Adding more findings of such analysis from a greater number of studies will complete
the picture and might result in more or different dominant theories. All of them build the core construct for the
meta-framework of global leadership.
Regarding the dimension of global, which is not an own section or dimension of the meta-framework
itself, the author draws on Hess & Bandyopadhyay (2010, p. 184), who conclude that “globalization becomes
embedded at all levels of the economy and society in general“: As globalisation, and thus cross-cultural influence
and complexity, have entered all levels of business (Kumar & Liu, 2005; Graham, 1999) the question is not
anymore those of the difference between domestic and global leadership but if global leadership has replaced
domestic leadership. The construct of Mendenhall, et al., (2012 b) would support this, as it includes the
flexibility to range cross-cultural arguments and complexity from low (former ´domestic leadership´ to high
former ´global leadership´).
CONCLUSION
Global leadership research struggles with its conceptual confusion limiting progress in research and
development as discussed. Within this study the terminology of ´global leadership´ and the cognate key terms of
03.03.2019 20:22:00 24
‘global mindset’ and ‘global talent management’ have been juxtaposed to provide the groundwork for a
methodologically proper and transparent review and analysis of the literature, with a particular focus on existing
frameworks and theories. Against this backdrop, ‘global mindset’ and ‘global talent management’ have been
identified as research fields in their right, with both of them forming the two important pillars on which the
concept of global leadership rests.
In the process of the review characteristic interrelations between the thematic sections were established
and transferred into a literature grid, which in its part constituted the basis of an emerging embryonic framework.
The characteristic features ascribed to the interrelations between the sections moreover proved to be helpful for
the analysis of additional papers as they provided substantial question facilitating their positioning in the field of
research. The challenge of key term operationalization suggested the application of a realist synthesis approach
for the main process of analysis. This method allows analysing different framework and theory related papers
based both on their thematic approaches and their underlying mechanisms. In so doing, it delivers constructive
results reducing conceptual confusion.
The feasibility of thematic grouping of literature without reliance on key terms was necessitated by the
fact that the use of the key terms is inconsistent within the field of global leadership research. That said the
analysis of the definitions of key terms in the selected studies produced further evidences for the conceptual
confusion. As a matter of fact, the lack of definitions or their insufficiency complicated sound judgments on the
sufficiency of samples or, worse, the validity of suggested outcomes.
This study presents ´global leadership´ as a construct consisting of the ´global leadership process´,
driven by the ´global mindset´ which in turn is engendered by the ´global talent management´, focusing on the
´global leader´ as an individual. In the course of the analysis in this study, the detailed definitions of Mendenhall,
et al., (2012 b), Moran, et al., (2011) and Adler (1997), all of them earlier ´benchmark´ studies, were contrasted
with the results of the synthesis. This rendered their limitation rather obvious, as they all turned out to be process
orientated. On the one hand, all three define duties on the basis of adverbial description of ´how things should be
done´, on the other they circumscribe the expected outcomes. Capabilities of global leaders or questions of their
developments are addressed to a much lesser degree.
Another complex issue is the definition of a threshold from which on leadership is defined to be
´global´. The application of the operational structure of an organisation (e.g. MNE or TNC) has turned out to be
insufficient criteria. Indeed, progressive globalisation within the last two decades has made any attempts at an
essential definition for the transition from domestic to global leadership obsolete. Thus this study assumes the
futility of the search for a threshold point and concludes that all leadership today contains elements of global
complexity and cross-cultural influence. The question is only to which extend. Therefore, the author abstained
from an extensive discussion of domestic leadership as a separate issue, which helped to further reduce the
amount of conceptual confusion.
The absence of a common understanding of the concept of global leadership obviously results in a lack
of agreement on clear boundaries between the fields of global leadership, global mindset and global talent
management within the research community. The results of the narrative synthesis in this study, by contrast,
suggests that global leadership can be described as a meta-framework comprising the intersections of the
research fields of global mindset and global talent management. The fourth section of the embryonic framework
(figure 10) could be disbanded, or more precisely merged with the first three sections. In other words,
development merged into global leadership since process related understandings and global talent management
covers research and discussions about the development and provisioning of the required capabilities, as
suggested earlier by Osland, et al., (2006, p. 214).
To sum up, this study suggests distinguishing the terms as follows: ´Global leadership´ should be used
for the whole construct as an overarching term. It comprises the operational ´global leadership process´, driven
by the ´global mindset´, representing the capabilities of the leader, while the development and provisioning of
the required potential is covered by ‘global talent management’. Well aware of its problematic connotations the
author of the current study does not suggest, for the time being, to delete the first word ´global´ linked in all key
terms, even if the increasingly blurred boundaries between ´global´ and ´domestic´ leadership might suggest so
in the future. As of today, it would increase conceptual confusion.
The study selection process at the beginning of the synthesis has identified 18 studies to be relevant for
the intended meta-framework. It could be established that most studies and models are based on two or at best
three underlying mechanisms, of which in total 15 are recognised. within global leadership. Purely summing up
all those arguments and results would not fulfil the initial intention of this work, namely to deliver a
comprehensive overview and facilitate access to scientific findings within the field of global leadership. Hence
the underlying mechanisms were synthesised in the build-up of the meta-framework. As Steyrer, et al., (2006,
pp. 120-21) have stated earlier, global leadership emerges mainly as a social construct, explained through
psychological theories like social learning theory, the theory of psychological capital as well as implicit
leadership theory. All this suggests relevance of psychological and thus emotional relations between leaders and
followers. Robinson & Harvey (2008, p. 473) expressed this by pointing at the “importance of creating and
maintaining congruency across values bands and the complexities associated with varying employee needs”.
03.03.2019 20:22:00 25
Another similarity is that all three main theories contain elements of change, as most other underlying
mechanisms also do: Learning is change (e.g. social learning theory, contact hypothesis), willingness to question
and interact with the environment is an element of change management (e.g. a matter of implicit leadership
theory, social exchange theory) and last but not least to understand preconditions for successful change
(psychological capital, systems theory). Therefore change is understood as core element of the global leadership
process, which is dependent on the individual capabilities of the involved. This is in line with the definition
applied of this paper “Global leadership refers to the process of change in organizations by which communities
are built through the development of trust and the arrangement…” which was modelled after Mendenhall, et al.,
(2012, p. 262).
The introduced meta-framework differs from others in the sense that it aims to merge different models
into one or at least to use them to support or complement existing ones. E.g. it adds the concepts of global
mindset and development of the individual to the construct of Mendenhall, et al., (2012 b) as shown in figure 4.
Another case is Service & Kennedys´ (2012, p. 80) ´Global Leadership Effectiveness Model´ missing a stronger
process orientation which is given by a joined model including Mendenhalls´, et al., (2012 b) findings.
Nevertheless, like all others this has its limitations, too. The limitations start with the reliance on online database
research. The availability of papers depends partly on the publishers and libraries and therefore it cannot be
ensured that all important studies have been consulted. As to the language bias, work is suffering from an
underrepresentation of research conducted in the non-Western regions of the world, limiting its global validity.
Furthermore, the focus has been shifted to explanative and or empirical studies which excluded the theoretical,
explorative papers, representing a major part of the field. Due to the application of journal rankings for quality
assurance, other sources such as conference papers, dissertations and books have not been used in the synthesis.
Thus the sample has been reduced to viable 18 papers which are not necessarily representative for worldwide
global leadership research. Nevertheless, the well-known (Western) scholars are represented and the results of
the synthesis allowed constructing a meta-framework covering all sections, theories and arguments.
Abundant evidence for conceptual confusion should caution researchers to assure that definitions are
comprehensively discussed, even for obviously well-known terms. Where more than one key term is involved,
clearly distinctions between the key terms are essential. More detailed descriptions of the applied methodologies
or the selection criteria for samples would equally help to decrease conceptual confusion. Possibly it is the onus
of scholars on the editorial boards of scientific journals to look after application of consistent criteria in the
future selecting process of papers for publication.
As for the practitioners, building the understanding of global leadership on its underlying mechanisms
and increasing the transparency regarding its intersection with global talent management and global mindset as
suggested here with the meta-framework could facilitate a better understanding of and a more purposeful access
to academic findings. The actual conceptual confusion is clearly counterproductive in this respect.
This study has focused global leadership in economical business. Proving external validity would
increase the usability of the findings.
In general, the author presumes that investigating underlying mechanisms on a much broader base of
studies will help to further develop the meta-framework and increase its validity. Further research should be
based on criteria not yet taken into consideration in this study, for example by taking advantage of the huge
amount of theoretical, explorative studies to complement the findings of the current study. This is particularly
relevant for those (underlying mechanism) theories which have been found applied only in individual cases.
Beyond that, future research could take empirical studies into consideration which circumscribe issues of global
leadership without referring directly to a related conceptual framework.
Additional research needs to be done to include more findings from Eastern scholars to balance the
dominance of Western philiosophies. The influence of spiritualism and therefore systems theory can be expected
to increase, for example, since the relevance of religion is evidently higher the Islamic world than it is in
Western democracies.
Another intriguing question arises from global leadership process development. Investigating this as a
progressive evolution of an operational process will be an important contribution to solve the upcoming
challenges and recommend further research into the influencing variables. The research on the variables
influencing the global leadership process development could help to develop efficient tools to derive correlation,
especially on the external influences. Thus the underlying mechanisms for the intersection of change
management and global leadership deserve further investigation.
03.03.2019 20:22:00 26
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Global Leadership-A Narrative Synthesis

Article in Academy of Management Annual Meeting Proceedings · November 2013

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“Early research: From domestic to global leaders”

“Other fields of study” - multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary

“Global Leadership” – Applied definitions

Global Talent Management

TOWARDS A META- FRAMEWORK (FIGURE 1)

Global leadership (process) development

Required competencies, capabilities for global leadership

Global Talent Management

Planning the systematic review

Search, selection and exclusion

(a) “developing global leadership framework or theory”,

(b) “evidence and or support for global leadership framework or theory”,

(d) “nearby key term”, and

(e) “related term / others”.

Procedure for thematic analysis

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS - ANALYSIS OF SELECTED STUDIES

Content-synthesis according to the framework sections

Synthesis of the underlying mechanisms

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