Key Issues in Multinational Leadership: Conclusions and Implications

Phenomenology is used as a lens to study the contribution of many individuals within multinational organizations, examining how their lived experiences affect corporate outcomes as perceived in related academic fields. Prominent perspectives in strategy and international business hint at instrumental roles of individuals as instigators of emerging business initiatives and interactive agents that enable transnational collaboration and generate multinational responses. Organizational knowledge-creation derives from the insights of individuals gained as they manage their daily activities and develop new improvements through interpretive social processes that are essential for strategic renewal and adaptation. Institutional theory points toward possible limitations when individuals operate across different cultures and value systems that can make open communication difficult and may inflict information biases. Adopting empathetic and compassionate leadership approaches throughout the organization is a potential alleviating factor to circumvent the negative effects of diversity and exploit its creative and innovative potential through collaborative efforts. Updated views on adaptive innovation are introduced, such as fast-slow information processing in modern cognitive science, swarm creativity, and amoebae organizations to stimulate ideation. These positions are presented in attempts to synthesize key insights from diverse fields, hoping that they can inspire further thinking about effective leadership of multinational organizations in a turbulent world. It points toward the development of semi-amorph international organizational forms that may resemble global amoeba organizations. This is likely to amplify the presence of flexible operating functions around supportive organizational climates where empathy and compassion can engage diverse individuals in creative collaborative responses to deal with a changing global environment.