ABSTRACT
In Chapter 1 we explained that engineering as a profession has entered an exciting and challenging new era. Organizations now operate globally, not locally or even nationally. Global competition, complicated organizational structures with fluid and confusing lines of authority, operations that are located thousands of miles from one another, and work teams that include members from diverse cultural backgrounds, whose first languages are very different from one another, and who are accustomed to very different ways of doing things, have become the normal way of doing business. However, within all of this complexity there are some recurring patterns. All of the situations that today’s engineers face are influenced to some degree by the global orientation of their organizations and the organizations with which they have contact-their global mindset and the structures through which that mindset in implemented. All organizations must establish and maintain successful strategies for obtaining necessary resources, understanding and responding to market pressures, and developing efficient operations and supply chains. Finally, global organizations must adapt to the cultural, economic, and political realities within which they operate.
