From the Editor | Spring 2016

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The Power of a Global Mindset

UNTIL RECENTLY, A BUSINESS COULD THRIVE by focusing on customers in developed countries — perhaps combined with one or two megacities from an emerging economy like Brazil or China. Today, such an approach still provides exposure to markets boasting
70 per cent of the world’s GDP. But not for long: by 2025, this approach will target only about one-third of global growth.

Within the next decade, 440 cities in developing nations will generate nearly 50 per cent of global GDP growth. Clearly, these changes have significant repercussions for business strategy across industries. Whether you work in financial services, consumer products or run a tech start-up, growing your company will increasingly be about finding new markets and scaling them to global success. In this issue of Rotman Management, we focus on the importance of a Global Mindset, and how to develop it.

No matter where you live, creativity is the cornerstone of economic progress. We kick the issue off on page 6, with Creative Capitalism and The Global Creativity Index, Rotman Professor Richard Florida et al’s look at how countries stack up in terms of three enablers of creativity: Technology, Talent and Tolerance.

The first step towards thinking more globally is self-awareness — understanding our own tendencies and biases, and recognizing the factors that drive our decision processes. On page 32, Columbia School of Business Professor Heidi Grant Halvorson and Dr. David Rock describe how to get started, in Beyond Bias: How to Shift Ingrained Thinking.

Without question, this is an era filled with opportunities; but sadly, many companies fail to convert this potential into profits. NYU Stern School of Business Professor Robert Salomon has gone so far as to say that “Failure in global markets is an epidemic, with no signs of abating.” He provides some lessons learned from Walmart, IKEA and Tesco, in Globalization: A Cautionary Tale, on page 56.

Elsewhere in this issue, in our Idea Exchange, we feature interviews with Mansour Javidan, who literally wrote the book on Global Mindset, on page 86; INSEAD’s ‘cross-cultural management’ expert Erin Meyer on page 90; and Rotman faculty members Mikhail Simutin, Anita McGahan and Dilip Soman, along with Executive-in-Residence Delaine Hampton and Rotman DesignWorks director Mark Leung, discuss their latest work.

Increasingly, society’s biggest challenges — from health, to security, financial stability and the environment — are global in nature and demand a global mindset. We hope that this issue provides some of the tools and inspiration required for you to thrive on your global journey — whether you are already well on your way or just getting started.

Karen Christensen, Editor-in-Chief
editor@rotman.utoronto.ca