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Frontier No More: International Consulting Skills as Necessary Minimal Competencies for Consulting Psychologists

Consulting Psychology Journal

December 2012
64(4):338-343

DOI:10.1037/a0031676

Authors:

Rodney L. Lowman

University of Johannesburg

This article identifies and comments on several themes that derive from the Special Issue on International Organizational Consulting: Consulting Psychology Goes Global. Six issues are identified that are intended to help integrate the Special Issue articles and to extend the four factors each article addressed: (1) how can we generalize from cases to actionable propositions?; (2) does corporate culture trump national culture?; (3) Is country an individual difference variable?; (4) are there international metacompetencies that consulting psychologists must know?; (5) who or what is the ethical arbiter in international contexts?; and (6) how can international organizational consulting psychology skills become routinized?

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FRONTIER NO MORE: INTERNATIONAL

CONSULTING SKILLS AS NECESSARY

MINIMAL COMPETENCIES FOR

CONSULTING PSYCHOLOGISTS

Rodney L. Lowman

CSPP/Alliant International University–San Diego and Lowman & Richardson,

Consulting Psychologists, San Diego, California

This article identiﬁes and comments on several themes that derive from the Special Issue on

International Organizational Consulting: Consulting Psychology Goes Global. Six issues are

identiﬁed that are intended to help integrate the Special Issue articles and to extend the four

factors each article addressed: (1) how can we generalize from cases to actionable proposi-

tions?; (2) does corporate culture trump national culture?; (3) Is country an individual

difference variable?; (4) are there international metacompetencies that consulting psychol-

ogists must know?; (5) who or what is the ethical arbiter in international contexts?; and (6)

how can international organizational consulting psychology skills become routinized?

Keywords: internationalizing, global consulting, multiculturalism, guidelines

This Special Issue on International Organizational Consulting: Consulting Psychology Goes Global

brings into sharp focus the reality that the world has dramatically changed over the last half century

along with demands that consulting psychologists move forward with it. In this brief article, I

comment upon and attempt to extend Cooper’s (this issue, pp. 243–249) four overarching themes,

namely, the critical importance of the cultural context, worldwide organization development,

national and regional economic development, and the role of consultation in facilitating global social

change.

Although the widespread preoccupation with internationalizing in recent years may seem to

have occurred suddenly, the precursors of change have actually been percolating slowly in prodro-

mal stages for many decades. In the United States, for example, the revolutionary changes associated

with race, gender, sexual orientation, and age arguably have paved the way for understanding

diversity in its broader context of internationalism. It is a small— or at least smaller—step to taking

internationalism seriously after battles have been fought for basic rights for racial and sexual

minorities, women, and those with physical disabilities, laying the ground work for acceptance of

diversity in several of its many forms.

Still, the driving forces for organizational consulting psychology (CP) going global is not so

much an imperative to take human rights to the next level as it has been economic and technological

I thank Special Issue Editor Stewart Cooper and an anonymous reviewer for their helpful comments on a prior

draft of this article.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Rodney L. Lowman, Organizational

Psychology Programs, CSPP/Alliant International University–San Diego, 10455 Pomerado Road, San Diego,

CA 92131. E-mail: rlowman@alliant.edu

2012, Vol. 64, No. 4, 338–343 1065-9293/13/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0031676

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