The Global Advantage – How World Class Organizations Improve Performance through Globalization

Citation

Harris, P.R. (1999), "The Global Advantage – How World Class Organizations Improve Performance through Globalization", European Business Review, Vol. 99 No. 6, pp. 405-407. https://doi.org/10.1108/ebr.1999.99.6.405.5

The key to this book is in the subtitle, the concept of “globalization” that is, how to take a business to a world level. Part of Gulf’s “Improving Human Performance Series”, it focuses upon 40 pre‐eminent global companies located in six continents. The latter include General Electric, Whirlpool, ColgatePalmolive, Shell, Warner‐Lambert, Coca‐Cola, Xerox, Federal Express, Hewlett Packard and others. Based on research and consulting experience, the author utilizes a unique “Global Success Model”, that examines six dimensions for developing – “global” corporate culture, human resources, structure, operations, strategies, and learning. The ten chapters of The Global Advantage not only analyze this model in depth, but the phenomenon of globalization, power and challenges in would‐be global companies, and the steps to be taken toward global success. An appendix offers an instrument to accompany the GSM paradigm so as to assess a system’s capability and readiness for global success. Dr Marquardt has produced an absorbing and needed work with exceptional principles and strategies. I was particularly impressed by his chapter on “Globalizing learning” with its helpful visuals and explanations on how to create a global knowledge organization that considers “knowledge as an asset” and builds a process of continuous worldwide learning into the system.

A human resource professor at George Washington University in the District of Columbia, Marquardt is also president of Global Learning Associates.

Gulf’s Book Division also offers two other volumes to supplement this work: Developing the Global Organization – Strategies for Human Resource Professions, by Moran, Harris and Stripp; Business Abroad – a 10‐step Guide to International Business Transactions by Lawrence J. Koslow. For further information, consult the publisher’s free catalog (Headquarters, 3301 Allen Parkway, Houston, TX 77252, USA, or Plymbridge Distributors Ltd, Estover Road, Plymouth PL6 7PZ, UK). Their wide range of business books, for example, includes 1001 Windows 98 Tips by Kris Jamsa, to increase the manager’s computer literacy.