A new world order is now reflected, for example, in the breaking down of market barriers across the globe also throughout negotiated trade blocks or through wide-ranging worldwide deregulation of local markets, or political turmoil as in South Africa, Germany and the earlier communist regimes. Transnational business has increased by leaps and limits and global competition and globalized business is now the new order.

A number of developments have contributed to the globalization of business. Advances in computer-assisted design and manufacturing and robotics have reduced the dependency on labour, increased production efficiency and increased market flexibility by reducing economic order quantity. Advancements in transportation have shrunk the distances between resources, processing and markets. Rapid technological developments have led to the emergence of new products and services and thereby new business and new industries. The technology-driven competitive edge is coming to be more and more temporary as new technological breakthroughs are reaching the markets sooner than ever before. The reliance on complex technologies has at the same time increased the potential for enormous ecological disasters such as those of the Union Carbide in Bhopal and Exxon Valdez in Alaska.

Electronic mail, facsimile transmission, tele- and video-conferencing has made it possible for people within and across organizations, spread over vast geographical distances, to share information instantly. Goods and services are routinely ordered through home shopping networks and banking is done from remote locations.

Globalization of a given business seems to be a multi-stage process. Many phases are gone through before a firm can be called a truly global company. The stages may be designated as domestic, export, international/multinational, and global.

When an export company establishes its manufacturing or distribution facilities abroad it becomes international. For example Phillips moved its long-range technology development centre from the US to the Far East to take advantage of longer term thinking and reward patterns. IBM and DEC moved their research and development facilities to Italy known for its intuitive and innovative behaviour patterns. Thus in the global organization, the strategy and structure is without national boundaries. The heart of the global organization is its culture, its vision, mission, policies, procedures, systems and practices.

Global mindset is the foundation for business competences such as managing competitiveness and managing uncertainty. It is an orientation to the world; it represents a certain curiosity about the world, to see goals and objectives against larger backdrops and time frames; it provides explanation and meaning for events and guidance for one's behaviour.

The global mindset has sometimes been thought of as an inherent personality trait. Many multinationals have sought to recruit rather than develop such skills. However, there has not been any empirical validation of the existence of this alleged “overseas type" personality.

Does the global mindset translate into organizational consequences? It certainly does. The mindset surfaces in terms of three strategic leadership thrusts which may be different in detail and scope at different levels of the organization, but nevertheless are there.

These leadership thrusts in turn result in business-goal outcomes (i.e. production, marketing), and attitudinal outcomes (i.e. employee focus on service, quality). These in turn ensure continued customer goodwill, long-term survival and company progress towards true globalization. Such consequences in turn reinforce the mindset.

In the new world order, businesses have to expand and manage people who can think, lead and act from a broader or “global" viewpoint. This global perspective or mindset creates a capacity in the managerial ranks to turn threats into opportunities; to motivate people not just to survive, but to excel, to take innovations to the market place at an increasingly faster pace; to operate through use of teams; and to take advantage of diversity within and without.

Also, many centuries often coexist within a given country. There may be a nuclear power plant on the one hand and yet within sight we may see cow dung being used as heating fuel. A broad long-term global stance is a definite asset for such managerial tasks even without any pressure of overseas competition.