The role of non-work related cross-cultural experiences in developing global leadership competencies

Abstract

Global leadership is a topic that continues to receive considerable research interest, and companies are invest considerable amounts of time and money in the development of their prospective global leaders. The specific personality characteristics, knowledge, skills, abilities and other competencies they seek have been discussed in the literature for multiple decades, alongside with the different means through which to develop the competencies. What if the same competencies could be developed outside of work during free-time, or even before joining the companies or graduating?

This thesis uses Situational Leadership theory, Competing Values Model, Global leadership literature and Global leadership development literature as a framework to establish the environment for this study.

The thesis uses a case-study as a methodological approach. The case organisation is Erasmus Student Network (ESN), more precisely their project Eduk8, which is a training for trainers. The data is gathered in two phases, the first wave during a workshop in Brussels and the second wave over Skype to get more in-depth information about the perceptions of selected workshop participants. The perceived development is then compared to the literature and discussed.

The findings suggest that non-work related cross-cultural experiences have a positive influence on the development of global leadership competencies. The participating members of the case organisation perceived the case project to offer multiple opportunities for developing global leadership competencies.