Nancy Adler

McGill University | McGill · Desautels Faculty of Management

The COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent global economic meltdown severely challenged the world. What leadership lessons did we learn? What should we have learned? As global managers and international human-resource-management thought leaders, have we undervalued the role of humility? Have we overemphasized leaders' impact while markedly underestimatin...

The Grand Challenge None of Us Chose: Succeeding (and Failing) Against the Global Pandemic ABSTRACT The COVID-19 pandemic and its related economic meltdown and social unrest severely challenged most countries, their societies, economies, organizations, and individual citizens. Focusing on both more and less successful country-specific initiatives t...

The overwhelming number of refugees in the world today constitutes a major socio-economic and political challenge. With more than 50 years of scholarship on global mobility, International Business (IB) should be well positioned to address this challenge. Yet the field’s historic emphasis on expatriates has resulted in dominant assumptions and persp...

What is responsible management? The responsible management field so far has been looking for a convergent one-size-fits-all answer to this question. Conversely, we choose to ask the grammatically incorrect, but generatively paradoxical question of "What are responsible management?" In response, this chapter features a rich potluck of six academic p...

Nancy Adler is one of the most influential scholars in cross-cultural management and leadership. The exchange documented in this chapter showcases the value of Nancy’s contributions to responsible management and leadership. The chapter starts with discussing the relationship between responsible leadership and responsible management, and then moves...

p align="right">Only by investing in the artistry of our humanity will we create a peaceful, prosperous planet “These times are riven with anxiety and uncertainty” asserts John O’Donohue.¹ “In the hearts of people some natural ease has been broken. … Our trust in the future has lost its innocence. We know now that anything can happen. …...

Music is a form of leadership. Music-based interventions in organizations and society are being used throughout the world, including in situations of extreme conflict and consequence. Artists are going beyond the dehydrated language of economics, politics, and war to achieve goals that have eluded those using more traditional approaches. This artic...

Pervasive forms of worldwide communication now connect us instantly and constantly, and yet we all too often fail to understand each other. Rather than benefiting from our globally interconnected reality, the world continues to fall back on divisiveness, a widening schism exacerbated by some of the most pronounced divisions in history along lines o...

Highlighting Aristotle’s appreciation that “The soul . . . never thinks without a picture,” this article weaves together art and ideas into an aesthetic encounter with beauty, leadership, and our humanity. It invites reflection based on long-established wisdom traditions as well as drawing on insights from everyday sacred traditions. You are invite...

Music- and art-based interventions in organizations have become more common, yet to date little research-based evidence has existed to support the claims of efficacy of such approaches. This article presents a mixed methods research study that explored the effects of introducing a music-based metaphor and pedagogical approach to teaching, learning,...

For all practical purposes, all business today is global”. As management scholar Ian Mitroff aptly observes, “Those individual businesses, firms, industries, and whole societies that clearly understand the new rules of doing business in a world economy will prosper; those that do not will perish.” “Global competition has forced executives to recogn...

Joint ventures, mergers and acquisitions, licensing and distribution agreements, and sales of products and services—crucial aspects of all such interorganizational relationships, are face-to-face negotiations. As the proportion of foreign to domestic trade increases, so does the frequency of business negotiations between people from different count...

Whereas most societal commentators continue to review the historical patterns of men's leadership in search of models for 21st-century success, few have begun to recognize, let alone appreciate, the equivalent patterns of women's leadership and the future contributions that women could potentially make as leaders. What could and are women bringing...

Music is a form of leadership. Music-based interventions in organizations and society are being used throughout the world, including in situations of extreme con ict and consequence. Artists are going beyond the dehydrated language of economics, politics, and war to achieve goals that have eluded those using more traditional approaches. This articl...

Scholars beware! For years, researchers have lamented the long lag times endemic in conventional academic publishing, where even the highest quality papers have often taken more than two years from initial submission to publication. Luckily, advances in digital technologies and the advent of online, open-access (OA) journals are rendering such dela...

Warren Bennis, an Inspirational Management Scholar Practitioner passed away last year. This panel symposium honors his contributions and discusses his influence on leadership and its role in today's organizations, managing and developing flourishing organizations, organizational effectiveness and their change.

In artistic interventions artists are invited into organizations to work with management and employees on issues that concern them, such as generating ideas for new products and services, supporting skills development (e.g., leadership, communication, and creativity), or clarifying organizational identity. For this panel symposium we bring together...

The 21st century confronts society with challenges that will determine the future of humanity and the planet. Such challenges defy traditional analysis. Paralyzed by the inadequacy of our standard logic, on which much of traditional scholarship relies, we search for meaningful and effective understandings that can guide us-understandings that seem...

This panel symposium brings together a group of well-known scholars to debate what a different model of capitalism, or a different economic system altogether, might look like. The panel includes contributions by: Nancy Adler, Ed Freeman, Henry Mintzberg, Otto Scharmer, Paul Shrivastava, Adam Sulkowski, and Sandra Waddock. The main focus of the disc...

A liderança extraordinária nasce no líder como um todo e não apenas no somatório de suas estratégias e táticas aprendidas, não importa quão bem executadas. O século XXI coloca-nos numa época desafiadora — época que exige uma liderança extraordinária em nível global, nacional, organizacional e comunitário. Para aumentar as possibilidades de líderes...

Whatever we choose to do, the stakes are very high. David Whyte (1994 , p. 298), poet Researching questions that matter demands passionate conviction. Whether recognized as such or not, such conviction, combined with profound compassion, defines true scholarship. Daring to care requires courage—the courage to speak out and to act. Courage transform...

“These times are riven with anxiety and uncertainty” asserts John O’Donohue. ¹ “In the hearts of people some natural ease has been broken. . . . Our trust in the future has lost its innocence. We know now that anything can happen. . . . The traditional structures of shelter are shaking, their foundations revealed to be no longer stone but sand. We...

Purpose Leadership insight describes the importance of and approach to reflection for leaders, using traditional journal writing, leadership wisdom statements, and art work. Design/methodology/approach The article introduces the multiple ways in which the Leadership Insight journal supports leaders' most profound aspirations. Findings It explains...

The determinants of business negotiations in two countries are investigated in a laboratory simulation. One hundred thirty‐eight business people from the United States and 102from Canada (50 anglophones and 52 francophonej ¹ )participated in a two‐person, buyer‐seller negotiation simulation. The francophone Canadians'negotiation style was found to...

Has university scholarship gone astray? Do our academic assessment systems reward scholarship that addresses the questions that matter most to society? Using international business as an example, we highlight the problematic nature of academic ranking systems and question if such assessments are drawing scholarship away from its fundamental purpose...

Has university scholarship gone astray? Do our academic assessment systems reward scholarship that addresses the questions that matter most to society? Using international business as an example, this article highlights the problematic nature of academic ranking systems and questions if such assessments are drawing scholarship away from its fundame...

Do we make a difference? This chapter raises a series of questions that each of us must ask as scholars, teachers and consultants in the field of international business about our efficacy and potential influence in the world. In systematically asking the questions, this chapter challenges many of the implicit assumptions underlying international-bu...

Although the percentage of employed women is increasing in most countries, the number in management remains disproportionately low, and the number holding executive positions remains negligible almost everywhere. This pattern holds across oriental and occidental cultures, across communist, socialist, and capitalist systems, and among both economica...

Given the dramatic changes taking place in society, the economy, and technology, 21st century organizations need to engage in new, more spontaneous, and more innovative ways of managing. I investigate why an increasing number of companies are including artists and artistic processes in their approaches to strategic and day-to-day management and lea...

This article presents a unique case history to elucidate the cultural, historic, and societal forces that influence who one becomes as a leader and a human being.

In the midst of chaos, how do we see beauty? Surrounded by turbulence, how do we discover simplicity? Living together on one planet, how do we simultaneously celebrate our collective humanity and the unique resonance of our individual voices? Given the power of analytic understanding — driven as it is to claim life as knowable — how do we re-recogn...

Given the dramatic changes taking place in society, the economy, and technology, 21st-century organizations need to engage in new, more spontaneous, and more innovative ways of managing. I investigate why an increasing number of companies are including artists and artistic processes in their approaches to strategic and day-to-day management and lea...

Pacific Rim business is the fastest growing in the world. To remain competitive, no major North American firm dare ignore Asia. Traditionally, very few women have held managerial and executive positions in Asia, Can North American firms successfully send female expatriate managers to Asia or must they limit international management positions to men...

While more firms seek to expand globally,entrepreneurs and managers may experience difficulties or apprehension aboutglobal expansion due to concerns about cultural differences.By providingcoaching dialogues to entrepreneurs who are preparing to expand globally,experienced international entrepreneurs can provide informed advice andfeedback to new e...

One of the clearest challenges of the 21st century is to create multinational organizations that support an economically vibrant and culturally diverse global society. This article addresses issues raised in September 2001 from the perspective of a Norwegian-based multinational company that is combining its global business strategy with unique, art...

The reasons companies give for choosing to include women along with their male managers, how they expect women to contribute once hired, and the levels at which women managers are invited to contribute have been changing rapidly, but subtly, over the last fifty years. Companies' expectations have varied depending on their assumptions about the valu...

Makes the case that companies intending to become globally competitive must recruit and develop the most talented people, men and women. Describes the experience of one company in developing women for global leadership positions. Shows how this initiative integrated organizational development, team and network building and individual leadership dev...

How prepared are CEOs to recognize that their global competitiveness depends on including the most talented people in the world on their executive team, women as well as men? As global competition intensifies, the opportunity cost of traditional male-dominated leadership patterns has escalated. The question is no longer, “Will the pattern of male-d...

Will women become leaders in the increasingly global world of the twenty-first century? According to many Chief Executive Officers (CEOs), promoting the best people—whether male or female—into senior leadership positions is a strategic necessity if their companies are to succeed, let alone prosper. This article describes the commitment that one maj...

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Forty-one women have become president or prime minister of their country in the past four decades, more than 60% of whom have come to office in the last 8 years. What are these women bringing to the word's most influential roles of both political and business leadership? In which ways do their paths to power and styles of leadership bode well for t...

No one doubts that we need different approaches than we have used in the past to guide the global community into the twenty-first century. Yet, while many people continue to review men's historic patterns of leadership, few have even begun to appreciate the equivalent patterns of historic and potential success in global women leaders. This article...

Examines the underlying assumptions that companies make about the role of women in international management. Based on numerous studies, explodes some of the traditional myths about women expatriates: that they do not want to be international managers and that foreign prejudice against women renders them ineffective. However, another myth – that com...

While women's labor force participation rates in the Asian economies are ranked among the world's highest, women's presence in the managerial ranks is less impressive, and their near absence from executive positions renders them almost invisible. Yet many predict that the number of Asian women managers and executives will rise markedly over the com...

Crucial to every business alliance are the face-to-face negotiations that occur during the formulation and maintenance of the commercial relationship. Our study of American and Chinese businesspeople in simulated intracultural negotiations suggests both similarities and differences in style. For example, negotiators in both cultures were more succe...

Transnational firms need transnational human resource management systems. This article recommends global human resource changes at two levels: individual and systemic. First, it presents a set of skills needed by individual managers to be globally competent, highlighting those which transcend the historic competencies required of expatriate manager...

Increasing global competition is changing the nature of knowledge needed for international human resource management. This article assesses the publishing trends in international organizational behaviour and human resource management (OB/HRM) and interprets their implications for conducting transnational business. A review of over 28,000 articles i...

This article reviews academic management from three global perspectives: contextual, quantitative, and qualitative. Based on multiple methods of assessment, academic management is found to be overly parochial. Cultural values of the United States underlie and have fundamentally framed management research, thus imbuing organizational science with im...

Choosing a methodology determines what we can study as well as the range of possible results and conclusions. This study took an instrument that had been developed in the west and used extensively in Europe and North America to investigate managerial behavior in the people's Republic of China. For a number of reasons, it failed to produce a valid a...

International management studies have been based primarily on the comparison of managerial behavior in countries around the world. Often these studies have implied that business people behave similarly with their domestic colleagues as with their foreign counterparts. In questioning that assumption, this study tests whether intra-cultural behavior...

International commerce is vital to national prosperity. According to Robert Frederick, chairman of the National Foreign Trade Council, 80% of United States industry now faces international competition. The growing interdependence of national economies has created a demand for managers sophisticated in international business and skilled in working w...

The author traces the shared history of Russia and Islam. The study's analytical drive stresses political and geopolitical relationships over time and examines Russia's Muslim populations, religious institutions, political organizations and ideological movements.

The determinants of business negotiations in three countries are investigated in a laboratory simulation. One hundred thirty-eight businesspeople from the United States, 68 from Mexico, and 148 from Canada (74 Anglophones and 74 Francophones) participated in a two-person, buyer-seller negotiation simulation. The negotiation styles of the Francophon...

Although they saw more advantages to domestic than international careers, eighty-four percent of the 1129 graduating MBAs surveyed stated that they would like an international assignment at some time during their careers. MBAs attending international schools showed the most interest followed by Canadian MBAs. American MBAs displayed the least inter...

This article reviews the areas of comparative and cross-cultural management and discusses the impact of cultural diversity on international organizational behavior. With the growing shift of business from the Atlantic to the Pacific Basin, East-West cultural differences are becoming increasingly significant. Research in developmental psychology, so...

Administered a questionnaire on women's alleged disinterest in international management to 1,129 students (mean age 26.5 yrs) enrolled in Master of Business Administration courses at 7 top management schools in the US and Canada. One-third of the Ss were women. Results show no differences between the interest and willingness of male and female Ss t...

In view of the dramatic increases in international business by North American Firms, the need for sophisticated international managers can be expected to increase. This article examines the current distribution of female managers sent in expatriate positions by 686 Canadian and American firms. Despite the growing numbers of women found in domestic...

Organization Development (OD) is an approach to managing and changing organizations which has been developed in the United States and, to a large extent, applied within the American context. This study describes the current, ideal, and future role of OD within a similar, although not identical, culture to the United States – Canada. First, fifty‐si...

The trends in cross-cultural management papers published in 24 journals during the last decade, 1971 to 1980, are examined. Less than 5 percent of organizational behavior articles published in top American management journals focused on cross-cultural issues. The majority of the cross-cultural articles were single culture studies; less than 1 perce...

The trends in cross-cultural management papers published in 24 journals during the last decade, 1971 to 1980, are examined. Less than 5 percent of organizational behavior articles published in top American management journals focused on cross-cultural issues. The majority of the cross-cultural articles were single culture studies; less than 1 perce...