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Information technology plays a significant role in a global organization. Senior executives of these organizations need constant and timely access to global information for making decisions. This information originates in different places worldwide for a global organization and needs to be organized before it can be used for decision‐making. The organization and management of global corporate data presents unique challenges. This paper discusses the data organization and management related issues for developing a global executive information systems (EIS) for senior executives of global companies. The objective of a global EIS is to provide executives with a consistent, integrated and summarized view of operational data from subsidiaries worldwide. The global EIS also provides access to external data that is captured from different sources. The system facilitates integrating the internal and external data for effective decision‐making.

As corporations respond to international pressures, exemplified by global “megatrends”, certain trends are emerging concerning the way that corporations use executive development to develop their key assests to respond to the external pressures. This article articulates and describes these trends based on discussions with over 200 companies concerning executive development over the last 18 months. These trends are: (1) processes to align executive development to the business objectives; (2) the parallel development of individuals and learning organisations; (3) the development of critical individual competencies; (4) the creation of a select but comprehensive menu of development options; (5) the development of global partnerships, networks and alliances; (6) the creation of competitive advantage through learning. These trends indicate a focus on developing organisational and individual capabilities aligned to the business objectives in order to create competitive advantage. This focus is not new, but the deliberate attempt to combine these six trends indicates a new awareness of how to achieve competitive advantage through learning. This paper examines each of these trends in executive development and explores implications for the future.

This study compares multi-rater leadership evaluations of 1,748 executives in 10 national clusters to determine whether leaders in the East and West display different global leadership behavioral patterns. Data were collected via the Global Executive Leadership Inventory (GELI), which measures 12 dimensions of global leadership behaviors. The 360-degree GELI also provided feedback data from the executives’ 13,166 superiors, peers, and subordinates. Based on multilevel modeling analysis of self-ratings and observer ratings, findings indicated that the executives generally display similar patterns of global leadership behavior, but there are significant cultural differences on some leadership dimensions.

In this chapter, J. Stewart Black reflects on his 30 years of working with global leaders from over 100 countries in executive development programs at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College, Thunderbird, the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan, IMD, and INSEAD, and in numerous research projects, consulting experiences, and advisory roles. In his reflections, he discusses the increased relevance of global leadership for today’s firms, what he believes the key capabilities are for effective global leadership, and what the implications of those capabilities are for developing global leaders.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the influence of competitiveness, strategic direction (SD), and competencies on the level of globalization and technology development in Thai firms from the executive perspective.

A pilot survey of 64 respondents in executive MBA programs was employed to identify the strategic factors that influence globalization and technology development.

The analysis specified important factors linked to SD, strategic management competencies, and global actions related to globalization performance and technology development. To achieve a better global performance and business development, Thai companies should adopt global standards, select potential international partners, use cross‐national projects, and focus more on the level of globalization of their operations. Top managers in strategy or business operations in high‐performing firms perceive a significantly higher globalization performance and technology development.

The survey was limited to the perceptions of executive participants in Thailand using a survey only in English.

Thai executives need more effective strategic approaches to compete in the global marketplace and to determine the appropriate strategies to achieve a global level of performance and increased technology competence.

The paper shows that the strategic competencies and global competencies of executives play a significant role in firms' level of global performance and technology development. These competencies support effective strategies to improve the competitiveness of Thai companies on a global level.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the challenges and marketing executive development needs of the future as revealed in surveys of senior marketing executives, chief marketing officers and CEOs of major corporations in the USA and globally.

A historical analysis of the marketing function, its importance and emerging needs was conducted.

Within this paper, the two questions of key importance that will be explored to manage marketing in tomorrow's world are as follows: what emerging trends present challenges to the marketing executive of the future? And what skills and knowledge trends and changes demand that the effective marketing executive acquire? The conclusion of this study indicate that the marketing executive of the future must have the needed skills in managing innovation and change, educating and developing leaders, understand technology, formulate and implement strategy, apply new leadership concepts, collaborate with government, anticipate social and technological advances, become more customer oriented and be more flexible.

The paper is valuable in that it highlights the challenges and needs of senior marketing executives going forward in a changing world.

In recent years, the concept of cultural intelligence has attracted increased interest among scholars and practitioners in global leadership research. This chapter aims to contribute to the understanding of the impact of Experiential Learning Theory on the development of cultural intelligence in global leaders. It proposes a model that addresses the relationship between four modes of experiential learning and four facets of cultural intelligence; and hypothesizes that learning styles exercise a moderating effect on the relationship between international experience and cultural intelligence. Managerial implications for global talent selection and leadership development are also proposed based on the model.

Despite the need for effective global leaders on the part of business (McKinsey, 2012) and the growing body of empirical research related to the topic of global leadership (Osland, 2013a), very little is known about what global leaders actually do. How do they spend their time? In what kinds of activities are they involved? How do they communicate, coordinate, make decisions, and lead? How is their work similar to or different from that of domestic leaders? In this chapter, we respond to these questions by exploring the nature of global leaders’ work using an approach similar to Mintzberg (1973) in his classic book, The Nature of Managerial Work. We observed five global leaders from five different industries, each for 1 week, and compared our results with Mintzberg’s (1973). In addition, we conducted informal interviews and collected archival data. We content-analyzed the data using the conventions of grounded theory and identified 10 distinguishing characteristics of global leaders’ work. It is characterized by (1) multiple time zones and geographical distance; (2) long hours; (3) flexible schedules and fluid time; (4) dependence on technology; (5) time alone connected to others; (6) extensive travel; (7) functional expertise with global scope; (8) facilitation of information, advice, and action; (9) management of complexity; and (10) confrontation of risk. We conclude by discussing implications for future global leadership research.

As we begin the 21st century, evidence abounds that executive and leadership development has failed to meet expectations. Unless we change our assumptions and think differently about executives and the development process, we will continue to find too few executives to carry out corporate strategies, and the competence of those executives available will be too often open to question. The “competency model” of the executive, proposing as it does a single set of competencies that account for success, must be supplemented with a development model based on leadership challenges rather than executive traits and competencies. Executive performance must focus on “what gets done” rather than on one way of doing it or on what competencies executives have. In turn, executive development must be viewed as meeting performance challenges essential to the business strategy rather than attending development programs, with senior executives making development decisions much as they make business decisions today.

Although managing global change is one of the key competencies demanded of global leaders, it is one of the most under-researched topics in the field (Lane, Spector, Osland, & Taylor, 2014). This chapter shares findings from a recent qualitative study that examined how global business leaders navigate complex global changes. Data were collected from 23 global business executives working for 20 unique global enterprises, in 12 different functions, through a pre-interview participant qualifying profile, an in-depth semi-structured interview, and follow-up verification. Findings reveal that global business executives are contextual leaders who juggle both global task and global relationship complexities. The paradox is the process they employ to navigate continuous change, enabled by sensemaking. Finally, as agile learners, they prove that the global leadership capabilities required to navigate paradox can be learned.