Global Personnel Skills: A Dilemma for the Karpin Committee and Others

Abstract

The Karpin committee's review of Australian management concluded that Australia's predominantly Anglo-Celtic senior management group lack significant abilities and this shortcoming retards Australian enterprise in its desire to meet the challenges of the 'Asia-Pacific' century (Karpin, 1995: xv). This paper reviews the recent progress of Australian business activity in Asia and observes that, while some advances have been made, the level of activity remains below potential. A lack of 'globalization' skills has been identified by Karpin and others as being the problem, but there is no consensus as to what these are, or how they can be achieved. 'International' knowledge and skills have been shown to be directly related to success in international business. However, this relationship is not well accepted among Australian managers. The paper concludes that a lack of language and cultural knowledge is retarding Australian business penetration of Asian markets and recommends a more strategic approach to human resource management in this area.