An International Perspective

Abstract

We live in interesting times when organizations are having to take an increasingly international perspective in planning the assessment and development of their people. Commercial organizations, under ongoing pressure to grow their profits and frequently under challenge from external competition, are turning in greater numbers to the international market- place. Governments plan to facilitate their action through the creation of trading partnerships, fiscal incentives, advisory support, trade delegations and the like. Service and support organizations necessarily follow this trend. There are many human resource implications from this move towards international business, including some substantial practical and motivational issues of managing pay and benefits on an equitable international basis. However, in this chapter our objective is to touch on some of the main assessment and development issues for organizations required to take an international perspective. Inevitably, we will have to restrict ourselves to the more substantial issues. Trying to deal with the many variations in assessment and development practice around the world is beyond the scope of this chapter.