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Managing global change is one of the key competencies demanded of global leaders and one of the main challenges they face, according to some scholars. However, leading change in the global context is one of the most under-researched areas of global leadership. This conceptual chapter first contrasts the organizational development and organization change fields and then proposes a hybrid approach termed global strategic change. Global strategies require new patterns of employee behavior and an enhanced appreciation of the dynamics of intercultural change in which two or more national cultures are involved. Understanding these demands on employee behavior will aid managers in pursuing their globalization efforts. Culture is conceived as a boundary condition, and cultural values that might impact each stage in the change process are identified. Two case studies illustrate successful global strategic change by expert global leaders who were not intimidated by cultural stereotypes. Thoughtful executives can create strategic performance improvements by avoiding being trapped or intimidated by a simplistic interpretation of cultural constraints.

Drawing on empirical data from two studies of 119 Japanese affiliates located in the United States and Europe, this chapter focuses on three fundamental questions: (1) What organizational factors influence performance of the overseas affiliates of Japanese MNCs? (2) What impact does expatriate staffing have on the affiliate’s performance? (3) What factors influence expatriate staffing patterns in Japanese MNCs? The empirical results lend support to the hypothesis that MNCs characterized by global integration and local responsiveness will outperform less transnational competitors, although there are significant differences between the American and European subsamples on the impact of expatriate presence on affiliate performance. In addition, there is no support for the life-cycle prediction that age or parent company experience influences expatriate staffing levels or for the resource dependence prediction that integration with the parent influences expatriate presence. These results and their implications are discussed.

Japan has been conceived of as being a “developmental state.” However, given that Japan has, since 1992, been contending with a post-bubble “crisis period,” it is important to examine whether or not the resultant deregulation has altered the government-industry nexus. This paper focuses on amakudari, a core administrative guidance medium, within four core industries to measure the extent and direction of regulatory change. The findings show that amakudari networks have weakened, with corporations only employing bureaucrats deemed as being useful, supporting the hypothesis that there has been a “paradigm shift” from a “developmental state” to a “resource dependence” view.

This paper explores the empirical relationships between the global orientation of the top management team, geocentrism of the staffing and promotion system, and boundary spanning structures and processes with the individual outcome variables of employee commitment to, and excitement about, their job and organization in ten units of two highly diversified high-technology Japanese multinational corporations. The results from the study show that employee perceptions of the top management team’s global orientation, geocentrism, and boundary spanning structures and processes influence individual attitudes of employees in Japanese MNCs. The implications of these results for further research and managerial practice are discussed.

Our understanding of Japanese supply relationships comes primarily from studying the automobile industry. This paper identifies three elements of the automobile industry that, although generally assumed to be widespread, are largely absent in the notebook computer industry, leading to a different pattern of supply relationships: a sizable pool of external suppliers; the feasibility of shukko and cross-shareholding to strengthen supply relationships; and the adequacy of these means to manage external supply relationships. This finding debunks the myth of a monolithic model of “Japanese-style” supply relationships and illustrates the importance of idiosyncratic elements of an industry’s environment on its supply relationships.