In my view, globalization has been overall positive for organizations, but I would say it's been less so for workers, even though it has lifted many out of poverty. Welcome to Human Resource Development Masterclass, the podcast series from the Academy of Human Resource Development, the organization that leads HRD through research. I'm your host, Darren Short.
And here in our fourth season, we're exploring the relationship between HRD and trends in society and organisations, with the help of leading authors, researchers and scholars. Today, our focus is on the relationship between HRD and the changing nature of globalization. And my guests are Dr. Zha Wang of Texas A&M University, Dr. Oliver Ozzy-Crocko of Louisiana State University, and Dr. Robert Yawson of Quinnipiac University, all of whom joined me for a conversation recorded in May of 2023.
Our episode today is structured into two sections. In the first, we look at what we mean by the term globalization and how it impacts organizations and the workplace. Then, in the second section, we explore the implications for HRD practice, research, and education. You can find out all about the questions explored in the episode, the three guest scholars, and also the episode sponsors by visiting allbypodcast.com forward slash globalization.
Talking of sponsorship, Human Resource Development Masterclass is only made possible thanks to the wonderful support of our sponsors, who cover all of the costs associated with the series and so enable us to release them free of charge to listeners like you. I recommend you show your thanks by checking them out and by letting them know just how much their sponsorship means to you.
Today's episode is sponsored by the Educational Human Resource Development Program at Texas A&M University and by the School of Leadership and HRD at Louisiana State University. The first section of the episode is sponsored by the Educational Human Resource Development Program at Texas A&M University.
With a vision of transforming lives through the core mission of teaching, research and outreach, the Educational Human Resource Development Programme is addressing some of human resource development's most urgent challenges today. including talent and leadership development, career development and organisational development, and through inclusive excellence at local, national and international contexts.
The program is also a leader in graduating scholar practitioners, conducting research that advances theory and informs both policy and practice. Ultimately improving the quality of life for countless individuals across multiple disciplines, the Educational Human Resource Development Program is focused on preparing the leaders of tomorrow and setting the standards for excellence. You can learn more about the program by visiting eahr.tamu.edu. Right, let's dive into the episode.
So welcome to our episode on the changing nature of globalization and implications for HRD. And let's start by meeting today's three guest scholars. First, I'd like to welcome Dr. Xia Wang. tenured professor of human resource development at Texas A&M University. Jha's research and publications focus on the areas of national and international HRD, crisis management, workplace learning.
workplace incivility, and work-life issues. With over 25 years of accumulated experiences in several cultures, Shah has designed and conducted numerous educational workshops to diverse groups. in both the corporate and university settings. So welcome, Jaa. Thank you so much, Derek. It's great to be here. So my second guest for the episode is Dr. Oliver Ozzy-Crocko.
Assistant Professor of Leadership and Human Resource Development at Louisiana State University. Ozzy lived and worked in Thailand for four years and has delivered workshops, lectures, and conference presentations in a variety of countries. Oz's research focuses on leadership and human resource development in Southeast Asia, adult development, learning experience design, and enhancing global mindset in university and work contexts.
His recent book, Developing Human Resources in Southeast Asia, explores the region's HRD ecosystem. So welcome, Ozzy. Thanks so much, Darren. Looking forward to it. And my third guest for the episode is Dr. Robert Yawson, Associate Professor of Management and the Chair of Entrepreneurship, International Business and Strategy Department at the School of Business, Quinnipiac University.
Robert received the prestigious Center for Excellence in Teaching Award in 2018 and was named the 2018 Faculty Scholar of the Year and the 2020 James Marshall Award for Service recipient. Robert has a PhD from the University of Minnesota and an MPhil from the University of Ghana, as well as a postgraduate certificate from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Robert is the Editor-in-Chief of the Organization Management Journal. So welcome, Robert. Thank you, and great to be here with you, Ja and Ozzy. So over the next hour, we'll be talking about the changing nature of globalization and implications for organizations and individuals and then implications for HRD. But before diving into those, I'd like to start off our conversation by exploring what we mean by the term globalization.
and how the three of you have worked on that topic through your research, writing and practice. So Ozzy, I was wondering if you'd be willing to get the ball rolling for us by telling us a bit about what globalization means to you and what your relationship has been to globalization in your career. You know, I think it's commonly understood that globalization involves the idea of movement. Movement first of maybe people, but also movement of goods and services, movement of capital.
often in the form of investment, movement of ideas, movement of cultures all around the world. And so I like to think about globalization as the integration or connection of human society across the world. But it also includes things like pollution, for example, cross-border haze and diseases, which we saw with COVID. So, you know, it's also had some non-human elements as well. And depending on which lens you take, when you look at globalization, you could think about
globalization beginning and ending and starting and different phases at different times. You know, you could look at, for example, invasive species and think about that as a form of ecological globalization. But obviously my lens. has been exploring globalization through HRD. And, you know, I'm of the opinion that HRD is intimately involved in so many activities related to globalization. So it relates to talent mobility.
and how organizations conduct training and development in international work. And research shows that HRD is crucial for attracting foreign direct investment. Basically, HRD plays a role in addressing... global and cross-border issues of all kinds. And for me, I really started to see this when I worked in Thailand. And for several years, I worked on a project.
which was doing OD, organization development and change in community-based organizations in Myanmar and in the border of Thailand and Myanmar. And so I got to experience what it's like to develop a training program, a training course, this OD course, and then to do a training of trainers and all that was involved in that, and then evaluation of that program and the project.
I got to be involved in all those different ways, and I saw how HRD really has the power to positively influence people and communities and countries as a whole. As you mentioned, in my academic career, I've explored more macro perspectives of human resource development, in particular, regional human resource development in Southeast Asia and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, ASEAN, which is comparable to EU.
And that was what my book was about, that regional HRD ecosystem. So I looked at, for example, how HRD policy and practice in organizations, communities, governments mutually enforce. influence and constitute one another in this dynamic, interconnected HRD ecosystem. And, you know, in the case of ASEAN, this was really spurred on by the ASEAN economic community.
which was launched in 2015, which had the goal of two things. One, facilitating the free flow of skilled labor in the region. And secondly, creating a single market and production base. So that really shows you the prominence of the economic lens in globalization that we see. And so even though... I'm not an economist and that's not my main interest and my main draw to this work. I do recognize that HRD is often reacting to economic trends and the economic.
influence that globalization has had around the world. Thank you, Ozzy, for your insights. It's pretty hard to follow you. I think for me, born in China, my career started in Uganda. uh some of the consulting experience in nigeria then studying england i've always seen myself interestingly as a global citizen right and without really understanding the meaning of
global. For me, when I think about globalization, several things stand out. A culture definitely is the number one that stands out, just like Ozzy said. And people. People are the main component of this whole globalization process.
And I think about relationships, cross cultures, relationships between governments. There are lots of relationships, political relationships, economic relationships, cultural relationships, and personal relationships. So I think about... the context right even when we seek the commonality across different nations in the world what's really standing out is the tensions right the tensions caused by the differences of
individual society. I think there's a lot of balance between the countries for many, many different interests. My research is really focusing more on the national HRD. uh because coming from china i'm always very interested in my homeland a lot of my work to start with focus on china then i've done some cross-cultural comparison between china india and even engaged in uk by looking at management development at the national level
And I think most recently, my work with Professor Tom Garavan, we really look at the macro level. So what is the overall landscaping of developing national capacity? So what are we doing well? What are we not doing well? it's that for me globalization my interest is closely related to my professional experiences and where i lived how i was grown up and the type of education and i think the two things that really just
in the center is interconnectedness and at the same time is individuality. I think it's always how do we seek the common grounds and the movement like Ozzy said. But meanwhile, we are gravitating towards our individuality, our uniqueness of different nations. You can see globalization as an evolving process. It's not static. We cannot talk about globalization without talking about globalism. Globalism is a worldview or ideology that emphasizes that interconnectedness, interdependence.
Globalization describes the actual process and the mechanisms that bring about this interconnectedness. And as scholars, we are more interested in the globalization, the processes and the mechanisms. But the term globalization is viewed differently around the world. Some view it as a positive force that promotes economic growth, cultural exchange, and that greater global understanding.
However, others view it as a negative force that leads to cultural homogenization, exploitation of developing countries, and widening income inequality. argue that globalization is a neutral process, which could have both positive and negative. But growing up in Ghana, when we talk about globalization, the first thing that comes to our mind is brain drain.
Brain drain is complex and multifaceted and refers to the immigration of highly skilled and educated professionals from their home countries to other countries in search of better opportunities, etc. In regards to my current research as head of international business, a chair of the international business, we are always into globalization. Most of the research coming, and if you trace from... 20 or 30 years back then evolution is just interesting how people see it
The advances in technology and how it's affecting the concept of globalization is fascinating. And as we go on, I know we'll talk more about it.
you mentioned particularly was the evolving nature of globalization and i wonder if that's worth digging into a little as a next step because when i first started at the academy which was mid 90s there was a globalization pre-conference in those days and we would attract 40 50 i think in one year 60 people to a globalization pre-conference and there was this feeling in the room that it was an inevitable force in one direction and it was also a sense of it was a feeling for
for good, but it was certainly inevitable and only going one way. And it's interesting now, 25 years later, to think that over the last 25 years, potentially our views on globalization have shifted so i'm interested in your thoughts on how our view of globalization has been changing and and what you see is as driving those changes to me globalization is not a choice it's It's exposed to all kinds of internal, external forces, the implicit forces, economically, politically, and...
the public health we just experienced. So you mentioned, so that's why I mentioned it's an evolving process, right? And what makes it even more challenging to really think about globalization? is this digital advancement. To some degree, the globalization in a world of digital advancements make me feel more global than ever before.
We're more connected than ever before. So there is a huge part of digital globalization. Whether we want to accept or not, we are just part of the trends, right? So that's moving faster than ever. Never. But I think reflecting on the past three years of the pandemic's influence, we've seen more deglobalization, perhaps the need for localization of
supply chain, the production of goods and the provision of services. So to me, it's this continued involvement trends of what part of us needs to be globalized. If you think about, you know, one sort of beginning of globalization was with industrial capitalism in the 1800s, and that was driven mainly by colonialism. And so if that was sort of a beginning of globalization, it was incredibly exploitative and extractive. And I think even after the world wars, when you've had more of a truly.
a global environment where companies were actually based around the world, those larger economic powers were still active. And even if they weren't literally colonizing. other nations, they were still taking advantage of those emerging economies in many ways. China, Japan, the United States have all invested a lot, but there have been strings attached.
And then I think really in the 80s, when you had manufacturing that was blowing up and these massive global supply chains, you had failures domestically. with jobs being shipped overseas, a lack of decent work domestically and abroad, people struggling. So that was a good example of... this new emergence for localization and de-globalization in a sense. At least maybe not seeing economic integration as this prized goal that we all want to achieve.
And that really was the central narrative of globalization, that deeper integration economically would support economic development and peace for everyone. And, you know, I think that there are pockets of truth to that. Many countries were pulled out of poverty and many individuals were pulled out of poverty. There was just so many challenges and so much exploitation that happened at the same time all around the world. And, you know, it really was driven by elites that you have.
had a lot of victims as well to those prophecies, unfortunately. If you take economic shifts, the global financial crisis of 2008 and that subsequent economic downturn led to re-evaluation of benefits and risk of... globalization. People started looking at the impact of globalization as this joke saying that when the U.S. sneezes. everybody catches a cold and how do we re-evaluate that in terms of globalization and critics argue that
Globalization contributed to economic inequality, financial instability, and the erosion of national sovereignty. Some countries partially felt their national sovereignty is lost or it's been eroded. arise in protectionism, anti-globalization, de-globalization sentiment in some countries and prompting that reassessment of prevailing globalization paradigm. Technological advancement as Adia nicely described and as a result of our view of globalization now encompasses both opportunities.
presented by new technologies, but we cannot talk about technological advancement without talking about the disparities in technological advancement. One big thing about our evolving view of globalization is the geopolitical development, the rise of the BRIC nations, especially emerging powers like China and India. as well as the resurgence of nationalism and populism, we can see nationalism and populism in various parts of the world, have altered the global power dynamics.
And this development has led to a multipolar and competitive global landscape, prompting debate about the future of globalization and the need for international cooperation and multilateralism. There are also social concerns about growing awareness of social issues, human rights, income inequality. And another big one is the environmental concern, climate change. We talk about globalization and climate change.
is one key factor because whatever happens to the environment, unless a Congo affects the environment everywhere else. So we cannot talk about... globalization evolving nature of globalization without talking about climate change and other environmental challenges brought about by the ecological dimensions So these drivers have contributed to a more complex and multifaceted view of globalization, characterized by a deeper understanding of its benefits, risks, and implications.
perspectives has prompted calls for more inclusive sustainable and resilient forms of globalization and balance economic growth with some social and environmental considerations because because of globalization we can't make you can't tell my grandmother in the village to stop using firewood for cooking whilst not looking at um income inequality and others so we cannot make blanket global policies due to globalization. Robert, I'd love to pick up on that.
Given the nature of globalization and the fact that it's viewed differently from where you are and your experiences, When you look at globalization from your standpoint and how it's been changing, how do you see it impacting organizations and people in the workforce? The changing nature of globalization is impacting organizations and the workforce in various ways, creating both opportunities and challenges.
The effect of globalization on the organization of work and employment patterns, the possible loss of job security, the introduction of new technologies, the increasing age of the workforce. The incorporation of new gender identities into the workforce are some of the changes in the labor market. And how do we see it globally?
From increased global competition and access to talent to the adoption of new technologies and the need for cultural adaptability. And these challenges require organizations and their employees to be more agile. adaptable forward thinking in order to succeed in the dynamic global environment because now the competition is not just in country
You are competing globally. And some key aspects of this impact are the increased interconnectedness of markets and economies has intensified global competition. Organizations must adapt to compete with businesses from different countries, leading to the need for innovation, efficiency, and cost effectiveness. Access to global talent.
globalization enables organizations to tap into a wider pool of talent allowing them to hire skilled professionals from different countries and this can lead to greater diversity in the workplace of course, functioning creativity and innovation. However, it can also contribute to brain drain as I mentioned earlier.
in some regions and raise concerns about job displacement for local workers. The ability to attract, develop, and retain needed supply of credit card challenge is a challenge facing all organizations. Remote work and digitalization, we've talked about it here a lot. The widespread adoption of digital technologies has transformed the way people work, enabling remote work and virtual collaboration across borders.
And this has allowed organizations to source talent and expertise from anywhere in the world, creating new opportunities for the workforce. There is, however, a caveat. It has also raised concerns about job security. work-life balance and the potential for digital inequality and the trend toward globalization of business has increased the need for more global information systems that enable and support operations so in order to develop
and support your global information system. You must employ a global IT workforce and the unique nature of IT workforce, specific challenges to the management of these employees. Strategies for addressing these challenges have become a core function of HRD that we cannot ignore. Skills and education, the rapid pace of technological change, and one big one, regulatory compliance and complexity.
As organizations expand their operations and supply chains globally, they face the challenge of navigating complex, diverse regulatory environments. Compliance. with various international laws, standards, and guidelines is crucial. Imparting the rules and responsibility of the workforce, particularly in areas such as legal, finance, and human resources.
They incorporate social responsibility and sustainability. Sustainability is huge. The growing awareness of social and environmental issues has led to increased pressure on organizations to adopt sustainable practices. contribute possibly to society so you cannot just look inward it's now global and this has implications for the workforce in terms of adopting new practices developing sustainable
or sustainability-focused skills and engaging in CSR initiatives. And finally, cultural awareness and adaptability. We do a lot of cultural awareness and adaptability in HRD. Harvard does the need for more. As organizations operate in diverse cultural contexts, the workforce needs to develop cultural awareness and adaptability, and this involves understanding and respecting the different cultural norms.
communication styles which can contribute to more effective collaboration and decision making these are things you wouldn't have thought much about if not globalization if you are um it's national or local dealings but when it becomes global all these factors are really very important and this is how where i see the impacts of the nature of globalization impacting organizations and the workforce. I think Robert gave a very comprehensive insight right here, but I think I just want to add a...
A couple of my thoughts, right? So I think the globalization we talk about, I think Robert mentioned the importance of sustainability. And I think during a pandemic and after pandemic, we hear more and more about
resilience, organizational resilience, and workforce resilience. How do we develop their resilience, right? It's the organization in a globalized world with all the inferences, external forces. How do we... move ourselves from being surviving to being thriving right so there are a lot of implications and challenges for organizations and i want to bring another challenge is in this global we talk about
the cultural awareness, the differences, commonalities. And just let's think about Generation Z workforce. Who is going to be the largest workforce in two decades? One of my doctoral students and I, we've been studying on Gen Z across the world.
So we've been doing a very systematic review for two years by now, right? I think he and final stage of analyzing very interesting when we think about different generations we tend to generalize them right gen z is more innovative gen z is very entrepreneurial but gen z is not impatient gen z is digital natives so what we found in our research is very interesting is
depends on where you live. Like Robert has emphasized his idea, the concept of disparity. To me, it's your access to technology, your access to resources really determined and change the way you really look at the work. Interestingly, when we look at a lot of different culture, different country contexts, Gen Z in certain countries, for example, Eastern Europe, they don't always have access in underdeveloped countries. They don't always have access to digital devices.
right so their perception of using technology is very different from gen z's in the united states of canada in other developed countries so i think when we think about the challenge of developing workforce And we cannot forget about where are they, where do they come from, and what is the context, right? So for me, everything we do in HRD has to be contextualized.
even there are a lot of global challenges we're all facing but the contextual piece has to be there because we do live in a world we have very different levels of access to different resources and coming from china
In our country, Google, we can't just access Google. Google is banned. In China, we don't have LinkedIn. Those are banned. And YouTube is banned. I'm thinking... oftentimes we will we see lots of information on youtube and i'm trying to send it to my parents and i forgot they don't have access to those right so when we talk about globalization information i'm always thinking about
What is the source of information? Obviously, we can talk about the same phenomenon, but my interpretation is very influenced by the Western news social media. my parents my family is in china very influenced by chinese social media so i think when we talk about globalization developing people we cannot forget about those individualized context and so that makes
workforce development is actually interesting, but also very challenging. So many great points. Thanks for saying that. In my view, globalization has been overall positive for organizations. But I would say it's been less so for workers, even though it has lifted many out of poverty. A lot of the gains in poverty reduction have been in China, which ironically does not really have hyper globalization policies.
So it's kind of hard to tease out exactly how globalization has affected workers writ large. For example, while it's shrunk inequality among countries. As Bob noted, it has widened inequality within many countries. For example, if you think about when a multinational creates a manufacturing plant or a hotel, in the case of Thailand, something like a golf course, a lot of communities and members of those communities are displaced and it often creates
so-called wage slaves. So these are people who maybe didn't intend on growing up and working in the factory or the hotel or the golf course, but that's pretty much the best job that they can do in their community now, that that's what is there. And so they get in this cycle of having to work many, many hours and doing the same work. It's not fulfilling, as Bob noted. There's no work-life balance. Other people are perhaps displaced from their previous jobs that they were doing.
So I think there's really a need to focus on decent work and sustainable work, as Bob mentioned and Ja alluded to as well. And one thing I also want to note about the change. and how that's influencing workers and organizations, I think, is the rise of AI and these large multilingual language models, which are going to displace workers of all kinds, especially so-called low-skill workers, but it's coming for so many people. Music, design.
academia, there are certain ways many academic jobs will be threatened. So I have major concerns about the role of AI, which is ultimately a globalization force because it's something that is created in one country or a couple countries. but will affect every country that has access to the internet. We are sort of just wandering into it. And I think we need a more thoughtful, deliberate approach where we think about regulating those developments in some way.
But I will be optimistic that I think generally for organizations and workers, the changes in globalization are offering so many amazing opportunities. And I think about my work in Myanmar and also in Southeast Asia. Even 15 years ago, a SIM card in Myanmar to be able to call someone on a cell phone could be like $1,000.
And there was no, you know, virtually no Internet access only through some Internet cafes. And they were quite expensive. Now you fast forward and even very rural areas have Internet access. Almost everyone has a very low cost cell phone with Internet. So I am able to Zoom with people in organizations in Myanmar, even though it's being ruled by a military junta that overthrew the democratically elected government. Even though that's the case, I am still
from Louisiana able to talk to people in Myanmar, conduct research. So I think globalization is having these unique pockets of really positive impact for workers and organizations and communities around the world. We'll be back in a moment with more from Jar, Ozzy and Robert as we dig into the relationship between HRD and globalisation.
First, though, here's an important reminder that the episode is brought to you thanks to the wonderful sponsorship support of the School of Leadership and Human Resource Development at Louisiana State University. which offers bachelor's, master's and doctoral programs designed to develop students' leadership, learning, analytical and change management capabilities that today's globalised organisations need to thrive.
Recent alumni of the PhD program are employed as tenured or tenure-track faculty, organizational change agents, workforce development consultants, and HRD or training and development directors. The diverse and award-winning community of faculty include two current members of AHRD's Board of Directors, Dr. Oliver Ozzy-Crocco and Dr. Sanyang Park. For more information, visit lsu.edu forward slash leadership. Right, let's return to our discussion for the second half of the episode.
to start exploring the implications for HRD. As the three of you have answered questions during the first half of the episode, you've referenced HRD in different ways. And so let's start with the practice piece. So what do you see as the implications for the practice of HRD? One thing that I'd like to highlight, which John mentioned at the beginning, is the role of culture.
And I see that HRD practice, in my view, HRD practice is culturally embedded and operates within a unique worldview, a unique paradigm. Which itself, you know, any HRD paradigm emerges from cultural, historical context of an area. That could be a country, but it could be a city or a region. And I think the US is a clear example of this. We are a highly individualized country. We overemphasize individual rights, individual perspectives. And as a result, HRD practices are...
highly individualized. We have individual development plans. We identify and develop high potential individuals. We pay our CEOs egregious amounts of money because we believe that they as individuals. They bring something to the table, some value to organizations that only they can do. And politically, we have a president who wields incredible power individually, albeit we have our system of checks and balances. But in many governments.
Not a single individual is in charge of so many things. So that's a U.S. cultural value, part of our identity as a country. Many of the immigrants themselves are highly individual because... They decided, hey, I'm going to leave my country or they sought better conditions. They were willing to leave their country of origin, those of whom came willingly. There are many who came unwillingly, unfortunately.
So... We sort of attract this individualistic mindset among people in this country, whereas in more collectivist or communitarian societies, it would be inappropriate, for example, to single out individuals and only develop them. OK, you are our high potentials. We're going to only develop you or we're going to invest the most in y'all. So for me, the bottom line is that culture matters in HRD practice.
and globalization has accelerated and is continuing to accelerate the movement of HRD practice around the world. I think it's really important to recognize that HRD practice will always be culture-laden. And therefore, it may not be appropriate in different cultural contexts. What you think is a great practice, and I ran into this, and I know Ja has and Bob has in their work as well.
I had won some awards for leadership development at my undergraduate institution, and I thought I knew all about residential life programs and leadership teams. And then I went to work in Thailand and started to implement some of the things that I had. seen work so well in the US context and was completely put to shame and failed miserably and was humbled, which actually was a very important experience for me in my own growth and development.
to realize that there are certain practices that won't work everywhere. We also know for example that Culture is the main reason why mergers and acquisitions fail or succeed. Cultural adjustment is a big reason that international assignments fail or succeed. Really, culture is a huge variable in this. And that's really one of the things when we talk about sort of the future of globalization, how globalization is changing. Whereas, you know, in the 80s, it was all about manufacturing. Now it's.
really shifting to being about ideas and culture. That's what's moving around. A second area, which I'll only mention briefly, but I focus a lot in my research, is how globalization is changing HRD policy. And we don't actually talk that often about policy in our community, in the Academy of HRD or in our HRD journals. We're talking usually about HRD practice almost as a proxy for policy.
And we talk about HRD research, but I think globalization is changing HRD policy, especially at those macro levels, national and regional levels. And I think that's a really exciting... thing to explore and sometimes there is this for example in the thai context there's this culture of borrowing where they may sort of borrow some aspects of HRD policy or higher ed policy or organizational policy and sort of like selectively import it.
into their own systems in a way that accounts for cultural differences. And I think that's a really interesting area to be explored. Aziz's insight just triggered so many thoughts. I really do resonate with you when you talk about the culture relevance and the culture-laden practices. I think HRD, it's not just HRD organization, management organization practices are very culture-laden.
A lot of times we don't want to talk about. Even within the same country, Texas has Texas culture. New York has a very different culture, right? So we can't really generalize. But I cannot help thinking, Ozzy, when you were talking about this. our my individual position as an insider versus outsider i use my personal experience as chinese grown up first 20 years was educated in china then all my higher education after undergrad
were in Western countries, right? My MBA was in England, my PhD was in the US. So my value, my judgment of what's effective, what's working in management, it's very Western-based. I'm going to share quickly my disaster training experiences. That was over 10 years ago. I was invited to do a training for a very large Chinese company. Then I was told very specific for senior and
mid-level managers, right, for leadership training strategic HRD. I remember I was told by the training manager, do not use any Western cases, because in China, we already know Western cases don't work in China. Do not ask our participants any questions or give them assignments because...
They are not, they're too busy. They are not here to study. They don't want to be here in the first place, right? Do not interact too much. I'm thinking, oh my gosh, this is eight hours of training. Do you expect me to just to stand there and talk? That is our culture, right? That is.
That is, you are the knowledge expert. You are supposed to talk. We just listen. Don't engage us. It was the most challenging training I've ever done. And in the process of that, I share the GLOBE leadership study results. One of the findings about a Chinese manager's, generally speaking, compared to Western manager lack creativity. Oh my gosh, that backfired. I remember later on when I looked at an evaluation.
They said, who do you think you are? You're not Chinese. How dare you to criticize Chinese managers? That's the actual experience that first time I realized being Chinese, but not being Chinese.
you are judged differently right even we talk about this is a study done not by me that doesn't matter so even the way they look at me where do you train it makes a difference i'm thinking when ozzy was talking about the culture even within the same culture we're judged very subtly where you have your training my dissertation was
on management practices in a Chinese shareholding company, but I was highly aware how I judge their effectiveness is very different. What's considered in China effective? We talk about participatory management. Everybody started to learn that in China. And guess what? In our culture, you engage me. You're my boss. You ask me for opinion. We consider you incompetent because it's your job to make decisions. It's my job to take your directions.
Why do you ask me? So are you competent? So that makes HRD practice very challenging. I even wonder for myself, do I really feel I'm culturally competent to practice even I call myself Chinese? just because i studied china does that mean i really understand the intricacy of chinese organization management yeah so that you just make me think about how you can never really just
adopt, or even critically adopt, is not working sometimes. Thank you, Jia. So listening to both Jia and Ozzy, what comes to my mind is the lack of global HRD constraints. It's a challenge. And I know work has been done on Global HRD, Gary McLean's work, etc. But there's still lack of Global HRD construct.
but the process of globalization makes it necessary to consider the emergence of a global hrd construct the world of employment as we talked about has changed dramatically technologies imparting practices and experience and societies are becoming more global multicultural and with the rise of globalization employability is becoming one of the main goals of the like the education system
So HRD must take into account the changing world of HRD practice and help practitioners engage in what I call a more critical constructionist HRD. HRD must expand its notions of whom the profession serves and not to be too focused on large corporate models of organization. We need to take into account the changing world of the HRD practice and assisted sets of responsibilities.
Globalization is leading to significant changes in the work of HRD and we cannot continue to do what we've been doing. It requires HRD professionals to become more agile. more versatile. It requires us to be well-versed in cross-cultural management. As they've beautifully explained, cross-cultural management is important. We should be able to navigate different regulations. And Ozzy mentioned it. don't talk much about policies and HRD.
But to be able to navigate different regulations, they be able to use digital platforms to develop training and development programs are very important. So the economic and political. are enjoyed by contemporary cooperation brings with it an associated set of responsibility and duties but we still need to understand that policy lay out. And it's really important if we want to help our professionals and practitioners. Well, to me, that's a lovely segue into exploring what this all means then.
HRD education. As each of you talked about the implications for HRD practice, it's clear when you explore the thread through there that there is more. we can be doing to help hrd practitioners to work um in response to the changing nature of globalization so joe when you look at Those implications for HRD professionals, what do you think this means then for education and for how we're preparing those people for careers in HRD?
Quite honestly, as HRD educator, I'm sometimes overwhelmed. I'm overwhelmed by how fast the workplace is changing, how digital advancements... are just moving forward and i i feel constantly feeling i think for me hrd education starts with us right educating us as an educator it really embracing the mentality of
i'm a lifelong learning i'm open to learning and it's okay to say i don't know about it when i was in the room for example educating a group of younger generations trainers and od consultants i'm thinking do i have what What they have, a lot of times they know more about how do we use technology, leverage technology to their benefits, streamline work processes. I don't. So I think a couple of things I really like, appreciate Ozzy's work.
global mindset i think embracing a global mindset is probably the first step really spend time invest time in talking about cultures and not generalizing, we all tend to see, oh, China tends to be very collective. Now, if you look at today's generation, they cannot be more individualistic. When I'm in a classroom, I'm teaching students really about HRD. It's not about strategy. It's about teaching the way you really question, understand your own values.
When I think about HRD, it's really value-laden practices, not just the national value, global values, but also your personal values. Where do you come from? And what do you appreciate? What do you value? When we see people, we see people differently. We see talents differently. How do your...
personal values shape the practices you adopt, shape the strategies you adopt. I think that's a tremendous challenge for HRD education. We're not just teaching them to be a strategist. We're teaching them to understand the type of professional they are. That's number one. I think number two, in education, there are just more challenges about really building the culture, interculture, global cultural competencies.
Robert mentioned one thing early on that really just hit me. I really never thought about this global HRD construct. We don't even have a common understanding. of what does that really mean? What are the skills that are critical? We talk about people who, for those of us who want to work cross-culturally in an international context, we need to have business skills. And is that enough?
right and is that enough is that truly do we all agree in china we may see a very different set of skills so do we really need a set of global skills where we wanted to go one step further to see What are the critical skills in this country? That requires a lot more work on our part, but I think if we don't go into that level, we are talking about superficial level of competencies.
Thank you, Jia. Yes, so I think HRD education programs need to be more global in their orientation to provide students with understanding of the cultural, economic, political factors that shape.
global business is important and this may include courses on cross-cultural management international hrd some of it some schools do global business operations and to Keep pace with the evolving challenges and opportunities presented by globalization, curriculum development, technology integration, experiential learning, and as we... really emphasize cross-cultural competence. They are, I think, and of course, ethical and sustainable HRD practice are all important areas we should.
really hop on going forward due to the changing nature of globalization. A few things jump out to me in this question. And thank you so much, John, Bob, for your answers. You know, one thing I'm really passionate about is study abroad. So I think HRD education can integrate study abroad. into their programs. And I run a global leadership in Thailand study abroad program where we go and visit international organizations and organizations that have global work involved.
In Thailand, we go talk to their leaders about what it's like to work in this environment and how do they deal with all the complex challenges globally that they face in their work. And we also visit... cultural sites. I have them read Thai literature, Thai poetry. They take a short couple sessions in Thai language. So they're kind of understanding the connection between language and culture and how that influences leadership.
And so I think that's the one one method. But obviously, study abroad is quite expensive for a lot of students. However, I do think study abroad is cheaper now than it's ever been due in part to globalization. even with inflation and the rising cost of air travel. There are other things you can do, though, as was mentioned, just integrating global issues into HRD curricula.
And I think the easiest way to do that is by incorporating readings that were written by authors based outside your home country. And, you know, for the U.S. and maybe even try to find, you know, not just East versus West, but also the global South. I think that's something that you have to be very intentional about, but can be really rewarding just to sort of expand your students' views about just how expansive HRD practice is around the world.
You know, we are in the United States, we're emphasizing DEI and for very good reasons. And also for very good reasons, it's focusing a lot on racial components, gender identity, and unfortunately, slightly less on international issues and global issues. And I think there is an area, just as many DEI efforts try to encourage faculty to include readings that deal with DEI in their courses, I think we can do the same thing.
with regard to international issues, and even just trying to include, as I mentioned, readings written by authors based in other countries. The last thing I'll mention is that Maria Che, my advisor friend at George Washington University, She envisioned a program and enacted a program called the Global Competence Enrichment Program at GW. And what it did was pair international students with domestic students.
And then they were paired. And after they were paired, there was a series of events throughout the semester. They would meet as a pair, but also come to these events like lunches, or we would go to a museum together and talk about. how culture affects our views of things. And so I think there's a lot of different ways that faculty and education programs can help to prepare our HRD folks for careers.
inevitably will include global elements. And even Louisiana, which and LSU is a state institution that is primarily concerned with what's going on in the state. Our key stakeholders, companies that we primarily serve, that our graduates go to work at, are coming to us and telling us, we want our employees, which are your students. to have global skills and to understand the complexity of global issues because our business is more and more global every day.
I think, yeah, that's true. When it comes to HRD research, as you mentioned, study abroad, right? So in Texas A&M, we're very big on study abroad. And actually, the college will pay for students to sign up for study abroad. That's one way for you to really get to know the culture. And I've been teaching a course called International HRD for the past 15 years. And here's the thing, I'm thinking, based on today's conversation.
International HRD has always been considered as an elective, right, for students who are interested in international kind of work. A lot of students say, no, I don't have to. I'm not interested. I'm working in America. I'm never going to travel or I'm in a corporation.
I just had an epiphany. International HRD should be four courts required. It doesn't matter if you're going to travel, you have an aspiration to work overseas. It's the core skills. When we think about globalization, just think about in our context my colleagues i'm looking around my colleagues coming from different cultures in our program we're so diverse our students coming from so many different cultures so it's not an option say i build my competence
globalization, cross-culture, it has to be something we demand, we expect students to do. So I think I'm going to champion that in our program. International HRD needs to be part of that. I remember when I teach foundations of HRD, there are two sessions we talk about, national HRD and international HRD. I will show, because we travel around the world, show how HRD...
means different things in different cultures, right? In Africa, HRD means having clean water. The basic needs, the disease, in some culture can be poverty, in some culture can be... can be the safety, right? I remember my students' reaction is like, wow, we didn't know this is part of HRD. We thought HRD is only for corporate gain, right? It's only bottom line.
It's one way to open their mindset. Yes, it is very different in HRD, in many different countries, different things. I think that's one way as educators. make that part of their education. Make their global mindset part of education. It's not an option. We shouldn't give them the choice to do it or not do it. You have to. To be competitive, you need to. You need to have those basic competencies.
Yeah. Another thing I'm thinking, even, I don't know how possible it is when we, it's not just education, when we recruit our students. we look for you know we talk about inclusion diversity i don't want to go there because to me it's overused but when you do have students coming from different backgrounds how do you use them perhaps to promote right
promote the cultures, different cultures. How do we do that? I used to go back to China before pandemic, one of the universities in China's top eight universities. So I joined them for their summer. cultural immersion program. So they invite people from different cultures rather than Chinese to come to teach them. So you experience Western teaching styles. You really get to know how they teach.
That's another way. How oftentimes do we invite people coming from other culture to give us some immersion program? Or maybe just in a semester, one month, right? I think there are a lot of ideas we can. incorporate internationalism and globalism into our education.
Well, I'm conscious that we are coming up to the end of our time. But before we do, I've saved one question for the end. And so, Robert, I'm wondering if you'd be willing to bring us home by answering our final question of the conversation. which is about the research aspect of HRD. I'm conscious that many of the people listening are either already HRD researchers or they are students who are considering potential dissertation topics.
So when you think about the conversation that we've had here, what do you see as the implications for HRD research and what research is needed into globalization and HRD? I say HRD. practice and education continue to evolve Research can play crucial role in informing and guiding this development, all we've talked about with education and the practice. In my opinion, eight key areas of HRD research that warrant further exploration.
of globalization. The first one is workforce diversity and inclusion. Research is needed to examine the impact of workforce diversity on organizational performance, employee engagement, and innovation. And that just doesn't have to be Amiri-centric or Eurocentric.
Ozzy rightly stated, most of the time when we talk about diversity inclusion, we are looking at gender race issues and it's more Western-based, Amory-centric. How does that... take shape when it comes to globalization when we are talking about let's say diversity and inclusion in ghana nigeria is it the same as we discussed here so that's One area we should look at. The second one is remote work and virtual collaboration. And we talked about it a lot.
the rise of remote work um the ai virtual collaboration has transformed the way organizations operate and research can investigate the effectiveness of the virus remote work experiences, employee well-being, and organizational culture. Cross-cultural competence is the third one, and of course, we've talked a lot about it, and it's important.
and this may involve studying the role of cultural intelligence, empathy, adaptability in cross-cultural HRD. The fourth will be talent acquisition and management in a global context. We can explore the challenges and opportunities of attracting, retaining and developing talent in the global labor market and this may involve
investigating the effectiveness of different recruitment strategies, employee retention practices and global talent mobility programs. And the fifth one will be skills development and lifelong learning.
as the demand for specialized skills continues to grow research can examine the most effective methods and approaches for skills development and lifelong learning in the global context and this may include investigating the role of e-learning blended learning and experiential learning and workforce development and the effect of that digital divide and how do we talk about blended learning e-learning when does this digital divide and it's an area of research which is
of interest. Then the sixth one would be ethical and sustainable HRD practice. We've talked about it. Studies can explore the integration of corporate social responsibility, sustainability, and ethics into HRD practice. And this... may involve examining the impact of ethical HRD practices on organizational performance. We sit here and we drive our electric vehicle cars and we say, oh, we are.
Green, we are helping the environment. We look at the supply chain and the children mining cobalt in Congo. How does that affect So if you are driving a Tesla and you think you are contributing to, let's say, the global climate change mitigation, but you are not looking at the entire supply chain where people, children under five years are mining cobalt in Congo. to supply your battery so there's an area
which is of interest, ethical and sustainable HRD practice. Then impact of emerging technologies on HRD. I won't go into that because we have on this a lot. And HRD policy and regulatory compliance. Ozzy mentioned...
and I will emphasize on it here. Research can examine the impact of various international laws, standards, and... guidelines on HRD practice in the global context and this may involve investigating the challenges and opportunities of navigating complex regulatory environment and the role of hrd professionals in ensuring this compliance so it's not exhaustive but i believe these are eight key areas if you have
a researcher or a doctoral student like Darren said, explore areas to research for your dissertation. These are some areas I think they are right when it comes to globalization. Well, it sounds like that's a wonderful call to action. And it also makes me feel as if there's a lot more for us to talk about on this topic, which presumably either means we need a second episode or alternatively means that we have a potential.
for a non-refereed panel discussion at a future academy conference just about researching globalization. But thank you so much, Robert, for the call to action and for the ideas there. And unfortunately, we've... and out of time for today's conversation. So I want to say a big thank you to our three guests today. So thank you to Shah, to Ozzy and to Robert for such an interesting discussion and for giving us all so much to think about. Thank you all so much indeed.
Thanks, Darren. Thank you all. Thank you for the opportunity. Thank you so much for joining me for this episode. It was wonderful spending time with Xia Wang, Ozzy Crocco and Robert Horson. If you enjoyed this episode, check out all of our others. There were 33 episodes in the first three seasons, and we're releasing a further 11 here in the fourth. Between them, they provide access to conversations with over 100 leading scholars from around the world.
New episodes release weekly. To learn more about the series, check out hrdmasterclass.com. And to learn about the Academy of Human Resource Development, check out ahrd.org. Also, don't forget to look into our sponsors, the Educational Human Resource Development Program at Texas A&M University. Find out more about them by visiting eAHR. and by the School of Leadership and HRD at Louisiana State University. Find out more about them by visiting
leadership. I'm looking forward to being with you in our next episode when we're exploring the relationship between HRD and the Great Resignation. with the help of Dr. Rajshigosh of Teachers College, Columbia University, Dr. Bhagyashree Bharte of the University of Southern Mississippi, and Dr. Yuan Lu Nu of the University of Arkansas. Until then, this is Darren Short signing off from the HRD Masterclass. HRD Masterclass Podcast is brought to you by the Academy of Human Resource Development