As information technologies are the circulatory and nervous systems of our emerging new cyber organisations, new information tools will become ever more intimate - to complement individuals and teams
What is the most ideal, resplendent mosaic of our global economy today, notwithstanding conflicts, wars, dissonance, hatred, racism, and whatever there is for one to think of - viz., the other word for suffering, or destruction? The answer is - the globalisation of economic activity, the reshaping of economic life from the personal to every level, not to speak of the breaking down of old barriers and boundaries, juxtaposed by several exciting possibilities. Of interaction, or co-operation, and growth. A spectacular scenario, right? Not quite, because the reality of it all is not as attractive as it seems to be on the surface.
Agreed that we've soared around the globe and into cyberspace, but the fact of the matter is that we are struggling to cope with the human dimension of distance - the distance of cultural diversity. More so, in the rapidly advancing stream of communication. No wonder, practically every day, millions of managers and line employees, across the world, have difficulties with the awkward, frustrating, confounding, simple, yet complex, questions of the global workplace.
When Mary O'Hara-Devereaux, a global futurist, trend analyst, business forecaster, and strategist, and Robert Johansen, a social scientist, published their insightful book, "GlobalWork," 30 years ago, they articulated a roseate sense of practical wisdom: "We make a classic mistake if we expect technology to do it all for us. Technology can help put us in contact with one another - over oceans and cultures - but, it cannot make us understand one another. For that, we must still depend on the oldest system of all - human imagination, tolerance, determination, and the will to learn continuously."This holds good for today, where the most wonderful things of the present are being replaced by the more wonderful things of tomorrow.
"GlobalWork" distilled a theoretical overview and a practical framework for bringing the chasms represented by cultures, distance, and time, based on the duo's exploratory research on new ways of working in the global workplace. The advantage? Mary and Johansen are management consultants and emerging technologies researchers. Their whole vision was primarily intended to be of use for all managers and teams, whatever the type of business, alliances, and governmental, or non-profit, enterprises. Also, in anybody's estimate, the book would be of immense use - in spite of it being 'dated' in certain contexts.
It is not without reason that the book emphasises the doctrine of 'electronic democracy,' through electronic townhalls, as being played out with increasing frequency in the political arena. It informs, with logic and resolution, the purpose of a community on a global scale. "A cross-cultural, cross-functional, globally dispersed team linked by a continuity machine, driven by a common enterprise vision, sharing in the common values of the emerging global culture, and producing out of their cultural, organisational and technical richness and complexity, a constant flow of wisdom."
The duo's concepts acknowledge with powerful insights the domain of a truly 'global cosmopolis' in cyberspace. As information technologies are the circulatory and nervous systems of our emerging new cyber organisations, new information tools, thanks to the continuity of a long tradition, will become ever more intimate - to complement individuals and teams. In their words, "We have expanded the race, we interact with computers in a digital sensorium, and (we) are beginning to explore more direct links by bypassing the senses."
"The electronic media," the authors observe, "have already suggested that face-to-face encounters may not be the ultimate form of human communication for every situation, though most people are too willing to 'listen' to this experience. Cyberspace will introduce us to a new range of options, where some of them may be superior to face-to-face -and, also best for certain tasks." Yet, they caution, with good intent, "Global work on the cyberspace frontier will take years to mature, but it is an exciting territory with many opportunities - as well as serious pitfalls. The cross-cultural work of today will provide the ground for creating new 'third ways' of global work in cyberspace." A point proved.
The duo's book was never intended to be a 'how-to' guide, nor was it a guidepost. It was devoid of street maps. It was broad-based on general, navigational directions to the global workplace for all levels of workers - from 'gypsies' to people who operate from home. All the same, it promoted the indispensable principle that developments in culture and technology must go hand-in-hand for advancing cross-cultural synthesis and collaboration.
As Mila Lazarova, a professor in international business, and others, explain in their paper, published in "Journal of World Business," "The world has changed irrevocably since the World Health Organisation declared COVID-19 a pandemic in March 2020. The pandemic caused a great 'reset' around the globe and profoundly challenged assumptions about how employees engage with work. While obvious manifestations of this reset have been dramatic reductions in global mobility and a massive shift to working from home (WFH), the pandemic also accelerated trends already in motion, including the digitisation of work and the transformation of business models, and brought long-simmering tensions around diversity and inclusion, migration, and sustainability. Beyond their impact on multinational enterprises (MNEs) and their employees, the ongoing changes were also challenging many of the assumptions, boundary conditions, and conclusions of established international human resource management (IHRM) research."
The inference? "GlobalWork" undoubtedly provided a futuristic peek into not only sophisticated strategies, that are part of everyone's life today, but also practical rules of the thumb for a world where agreements between nations are rapidly reshaping the global business environment - just as new, wondrous information technologies are compelling organisations to "redefine where, when and how work is accomplished."
