Taking trouble: The key to effective global attention

Many corporations fail to find the Holy Grail of globalization because they have not paid “enough” ongoing attention to the process. Without greater attentional effectiveness in their efforts to globalize, firms waste precious executive resources or decide to standardize their operations to limit the complexity of their international strategies. Neither of these reactions is desirable. While companies can deploy a range of helpful tools in increasing overall levels of global attention, these tools are costly and not every company is in a position to achieve and sustain high levels of global attention effectively. In this article, the authors discuss three dimensions of management attention: aversion/attraction, captive/voluntary, and front-of-mind/back-of-mind. Each of these dimensions provides an array of tools to focus management attention. By maximizing each of these dimensions, attention effectiveness is increased. In an international business world with abundant information, managers need to focus on their most scarce resource – management attention.