From local identity to global integrity

Abstract

Organizations have never addressed what it means to be global in its depth and entirety. It has been equated with being international, or having offices in different countries. It has been approached and appropriated through historical lenses of modernization, and of what sociologist Martin Albrow calls the “rational project”. It is felt that we have come to a situation that is nothing short of a crisis. Explores the depths of “global integrity” with a view to providing individuals, organizations and societies with the tools to engage in becoming global. In the process introduces our concept of the “four worlds,” and argues that each needs to be progressively transformed, from a local identity towards global integrity, if our current crisis is to be in any sense resolved. Such a resolution, moreover, requires, in each cultural case, tapping the core and bedrock as well as the subsoil and topsoil of each, as it were, with a view to evolving from a formative (local), as opposed to de‐formative, towards a normative, re‐formative and ultimately transformative (global) perspective.

Citation

Lessem, R. and Palsule, S. (2002), "From local identity to global integrity", Leadership & Organization Development Journal, Vol. 23 No. 4, pp. 174-185. https://doi.org/10.1108/01437730210429043