Global integrating mechanisms and global dominant logic: Managers' perceptions of global integration.

摘要

This exploratory study described managers' cognitive orientations to global integration in one global organization, Whirlpool Corporation. A list of global integrating mechanisms that companies employ to integrate disparate subunits was generated. An interpretivist methodology was employed in order to reveal managers' cognitive orientations about global integration.;A process model of global integration was created depicting global integrating mechanisms as perceived by managers at the collective and the individual levels. Using the nominal group technique; the triadic method of interviewing; and the repertory grid technique; 42 managers from Asia, Europe, Latin American, and North America were asked to describe global integrating mechanisms. The 42 managers were then asked to validate the results.;The results indicated that managers use three clusters of constructs to conceptualize global integrating mechanisms. The first cluster was Business/People. This cluster represents the contemporary concept of the psychological or social contract of mutual expectations defining the relations between employee and employer. The second cluster, Long Term/Short Term, is defined by the constructs Future-Day to Day, Emerging-Established, and Strategy-Execution. The means for each of these constructs were positioned on the "Short Term" side of the scale. This indicates that the temporal dimension is an important consideration in understanding managers' logic of global integrating mechanisms.;The third cluster was Process/Method. The Process/Method cluster revealed a preference to the Process side of the constructs. This cluster suggests that managers conceptualize global integrating mechanisms in terms of a cause and effect model of working, or in terms of antecedents and consequences. Mechanisms are perceived by managers as process oriented or methods oriented.;The collective dominant logic of the managers was slight compared to individual global mindset or individual patterns associated with global integrating mechanisms. This conclusion was explained in terms of drivers and barriers to the creation of dominant logic that suggests reasons why only a slight degree of dominant logic was found. Drivers and barriers include person-to-person interaction; complexity and range of convenience; stages of globalization; and demographics and culture Global integrating mechanisms were bifurcated into active and passive, where active requires person to person interaction and dialogue.