Analysis of antecedents of global mindset in a multi-cultural environment

Abstract

The rapid growth pace of globalization resulted in changes in the business world dynamics and, as consequence, the importance of having a global mindset has been increasing. Global mindset has been considered a key attribute to successfully operate in a complex global business environment. The goal of this work project is to answer to what are the characteristics of a global leader with a global mindset. Focusing on the cultural diversity and cultural distance associated with the global market place, it is suggested that cultural intelligence and tolerance for ambiguity contribute to high levels of global mindset in global leaders. It is also proposed a positive relationship between tolerance for ambiguity and openness to new experiences, where high levels of the latter characteristic has a potential positive influence in the variance of tolerance for ambiguity. Regarding to cultural intelligence, it is suggested that its variance is positively influenced by high levels of learning agility, and that this is moderated by the level of cultural self-awareness. The hypothesis were tested in a population with different nationalities, where age, gender, international work experience and being global leaders or not were used as control variables. All the hypothesis were verified validating the relationships among the diverse variables were verified, with exception for the moderation effect.