Development and Outline of an Assessment Center for Testing the Global Mindset

Master's Thesis from the year 2013 in the subject Business economics - Business Management, Corporate Governance, grade: 1,3, Prifysgol Cymru University of Wales, language: English, abstract: Globalization poses new challenges to the selection of personnel. Enterprises have to hold their ground in the market under the condition of globalization, and their employees must therefore be able to act adequately in different cultural contexts and to understand the complexities of a globalized world. This means that they need to have a specific set of attitudes, qualities, and abilities at their disposal. This set is termed a global mindset. This master¿s thesis with the title ¿Development and Outline of an Assessment Center for Testing the Global Mindset¿ investigates how properties pertaining to a global mindset can be tested by means of an assessment center. To this end, the thesis first discusses the concept, and the background, of the assessment center, in particular its definition, its history, the persons participating in it, the elements of an assessment center, its areas of application, and the evaluative criteria used in assessment centers. In a second step, the thesis discusses the concept of the global mindset. Subsequently, the literature on using assessment centers to test the global mindset is surveyed. The thesis then discusses the methodology for a qualitative empirical study, which was conducted by the researcher and on which the design of an assessment center for testing the global mindset is based. In the above-mentioned methods section, qualitative and quantitative approaches, the expert interview, and Grounded Theory are explained to give a rationale for this thesis¿s use of the expert interview as an instrument appropriate for exploratory investigations such as the one at hand. The empirical results are presented and discussed and, on their basis, a concept for an assessment center is developed. The concept includes the design of concrete tasks for testing qualities and abilities such as an interest in other cultures, self-confidence, willingness to accept risk, optimism, self-assertiveness, communicative skills, team spirit, understanding of global interrelations, and willingness to learn. The thesis concludes with a comparison between the findings of previous literature and the results gained here, and points out the implications of its results for both future research and practical application in a business context.