Building a Global Technical Workforce - ACS Symposium Series

Chapter 5

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Building a Global Technical Workforce Thomas Connelly* American Chemical Society, 1155 Sixteenth Street, N.W., Washington, DC 20026, United States *E-mail: [email protected].

Finding solutions to 21st-century challenges, ensuring continued national prosperity, and maintaining our position in the global economy will require a highly skilled, creative, and innovative workforce. Underlying this vision is the global competitiveness of the United States and capacity for innovation that hinge fundamentally on a strong system of graduate education. This article focuses on the recent trends in innovation, globalization, and management models used by U.S. organizations to maximize the effectiveness of a global workforce. Proper execution is often the key to success. During execution and planning, global thinking is even more important than global locations. With an organization that thinks globally, a workforce should be more capable of working across distances, time zones, and cultures.

Introduction Being able to innovate and think globally is essential for building a global technical workforce. With the advent of new technology, means of communication, and transferring information, our traditional approaches to innovation and the marketplace, especially globally, has changed dramatically. In this article, the author explains how these approaches to innovation and globalization are changing, and individuals and organizations should prepare for the future.

© 2016 American Chemical Society Cheng et al.; Chemistry without Borders: Careers, Research, and Entrepreneurship ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2016.


Innovation Innovation is the process of developing and applying new technology, or combining existing technology in new ways, to create value. An innovator needs to understand a market need, develop a unique technological response, and execute that response in a commercial environment. Innovation is essential in the marketplace in order to stay ahead of competition. We can invent in the laboratory but we can only innovate in the marketplace. In fact, the best innovations are those that are market-driven or close to the marketplace. Traditional innovation approaches assume that industries invent and design innovative new products to meet needs customers may not even realize they had. Alternatively, they may also assume that industries invent and design innovative new products based on information customers provide to these industries. The traditional model is shown in Figure 1a. Modern innovation approaches are more complex. Modern innovation can be conceptualized as an exchange-type model, where there is healthy dialogue between customers and our technology reservoir, e.g., national laboratories, universities, and venture capital-backed startups (Figure 1b).

Figure 1. Innovation approaches: a) traditional model (left picture), b) today’s innovation model (right picture). At DuPont, where the author was previously employed, the exchange-type innovation model is being used successfully (1). The model has the advantage of expanded resources, increased and faster flow of information, enhanced product and technology ideas, and stronger linkages with all stakeholders involved.

Globalization Globalization is driving an evolutionary change in research and business. Early models in this evolution can be described as dependent, or even colonial: those in charge are at headquarters, and they control what the rest of the world does and how work is done. There are advantages: lines of communication are 38 Cheng et al.; Chemistry without Borders: Careers, Research, and Entrepreneurship ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2016.


clear, and decisions can be made and implemented (even if the decisions are not always based on the right data). This is the way many U.S. companies have operated. The next stage in the evolution is an independent, regional model, known as the “separate-but-equal” approach. Geographic separation between the headquarters and a regional location creates a partition. This represents, at some level, progress versus a command-and-control ‘dependent’ phase. However, this “departmental” state can be dangerous, as it fragments the overall organization and forfeits the potential benefits of global optimization for regional optimization. It is critical that organizations in this phase move to the next level: the interdependent model (2). The interdependent model is the most difficult to execute because it requires orchestrating the efforts and opportunities of the many separate regions, optimizing them for the benefit of the whole organization. For example, it means that a researcher based in one location must work on the most pressing global problems, regardless of their location, as though the problem existed in his or her home location. The three models are shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2. Business and research models for global organization.

There are three reasons for a company to move into the interdependent model: (1) global customers may insist on it; (2) global competitors may prey on the lack of unity between regions; and (3) resources are limited—few, if any, companies have the luxury of reproducing all that is done in United State in other regions of the world. In order to achieve successful, global interdependency, a company must be able to manage diverse and remotely located working groups and projects. This often involves a knowledge of the geography, politics, culture, and market dynamics of the international locations. Companies (and employees) must be able to tolerate ambiguity and uncertainty as they strive for interdependence. In most cases, it is helpful for individuals involved to know a second language to facilitate communication between the interdependent parts of a company. During planning and execution, global thinking is more important than global locations. U.S.-based chemical industry is increasingly dependent on talent from around the world. ‘Global’ means putting people in the right roles, regardless of where they came from. Diverse thought and different points of 39 Cheng et al.; Chemistry without Borders: Careers, Research, and Entrepreneurship ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2016.

view are essential to discovery and innovation, and global thinking is just one dimension of diversity. This is why many research laboratories are increasingly being reorganized from a competence-based structure to a team-based project structure. With teams that think globally, an organization should be more capable of working across boundaries.


American Chemical Society (ACS) ACS currently has over 158,000 members, 25,000 of which are living outside of the U.S. 85% of its members have degrees in chemistry. 52% of its members are involved in business and industry. ACS is committed to its mission to “Advance the broader chemistry enterprise and its practitioners for the benefit of Earth and its people” (3). The ACS vision is: “Improving people’s lives through the transforming power of chemistry. ACS’s vision and mission are the guiding forces for all of its activities, products, programs and services. To help prepare for the future, ACS has expanded its presence around the globe. Currently ACS has 16 International Chemical Sciences Chapters around the world with a few more in the pipelines. These International Chapters provide local networking, organize scientific and professional meetings and workshops, and facilitate collaboration. ACS Publications and Chemical Abstracts Service are both very active worldwide, and they serve the global chemistry community, publishing and managing the chemistry information from chemists, chemical engineers, and allied scientists around the world. ACS offers many services to its members, and the interested reader may check its website to gain a full scope of its activities (3). For the present context of workforce and innovation issues, the following ACS entities may be of particular interest: 1.

ACS International Activities (4). There are a variety of programs, events and activities in the international area involving ACS staff, members, and other chemistry professionals. These include ACS International Chapters, educational and outreach activities, international collaborations, meetings and symposia, and many communication and networking opportunities. One of the programs within ACS International Activities may be specifically mentioned. The ACS International Center (5) provides information on international education and exchange opportunities for scientists and engineers, including scholarships, travel awards, funding opportunities, and grants specifically for researchers going abroad. Links to these scholarships and programs are sorted in two ways: by host country, and by level of experience. The site currently contains opportunities across 16 different regions: the U.K., Italy, Brazil, France, India, Singapore, Hungary, China, Japan, Germany, South Africa, Turkey, the Netherlands, Portugal, the U.S., and others. A major redesign of the site was just completed in October 2015. 40 Cheng et al.; Chemistry without Borders: Careers, Research, and Entrepreneurship ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2016.

2.


3.

ACS Corporation Associates (6) provides the link between ACS and chemical and allied industries. It consists of more than 25 companies that actively support the profession and science of chemistry. It operates a number of programs such as the Corporation Associates Grants Fund, networking events for senior managers in companies, and access to market information, technical trends, manufacturing patterns, and market opportunities. Three ACS technical divisions are involved with the chemical and allied business communities: Division of Business Development and Management (BMGT) (7), Division of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry (I&EC) (8), and Division of Small Chemical Businesses (SChB) (9).

Realizing the importance of education to the chemistry workforce, ACS has very active and extensive programs in education. Three national committees are listed below. The ACS has excellent staff members in their ACS Education Division, which initiates and coordinates many of the activities. 1.

2.

3.

The Committee on Professional Training (CPT) promotes excellence in postsecondary chemistry education and provides leadership to the ACS in the professional training of chemists (10). A major activity is the approval of baccalaureate chemistry programs at colleges and universities. Submission of the programs for approval is voluntary, but ACS approval confirms that the programs are broadly based and rigorous. The Society Committee on Education (SOCED) focuses on critical chemical education issues across all levels of instruction (11). Among their many activities, they recommend and help implement ACS policies and programs in chemical education, and they serve in an advisory capacity at ACS on matters relating to chemical education. The Committee on Project SEED organizes and coordinates programs where students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds have the opportunities to be exposed to and participate in scientific work (12). The committee also offers an array of college scholarships for SEED students.

Other areas within ACS that have an educational component include chemical safety, analytical reagents, environmental improvement, ethics, nomenclature, terminology, and symbols, and patents and related matters. Interested readers can check the ACS website on committees for more information (13).

References 1. 2.

DuPont R&D at a Glance; http://www2.dupont.com/Career_Center/en_US/ assets/downloads/duPont_r_d_history.pdf (accessed Nov. 17, 2015). Narula, R. Globalization and Technology: Interdependence, Innovation Systems and Industrial Policy; Blackwell Publishing: Maiden, MA, 2003. 41 Cheng et al.; Chemistry without Borders: Careers, Research, and Entrepreneurship ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2016.

3. 4. 5. 6.


7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13.

American Chermical Society (ACS) Home Page; http://www.acs.org (accessed Nov. 17, 2015). ACS International Activities Home Page; http://www.acs.org/international (accessed Nov. 17, 2015). ACS International Center Home Page; http://www.acs.org/ic (accessed Nov. 17, 2015). ACS Corporation Associates Home Page; http://www.acs.org/ corporationassociates (accessed Nov. 17, 2015). ACS Division of Business Development and Management Home Page; http:/ /bmgt.sites.acs.org/ (accessed Nov. 17, 2015). ACS Division of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry Home Page; http:// iecdivision.sites.acs.org/ (accessed Nov. 17, 2015). ACS Division of Small Chemical Businesses Home Page; http://schb. sites.acs.org/ (accessed Nov. 17, 2015). ACS Committee on Professional Training Home Page; http://www.acs.org/ training (accessed Nov. 17, 2015). ACS Society Committee on Education Home Page; www.acs.org/education (accessed Nov. 17, 2015). ACS Committee on Project Seed Home Page; http://www.acs.org/projectseed (accessed Nov. 17, 2015). ACS Committees Home Page; http://www.acs.org/committees (accessed Nov. 17, 2015).

42 Cheng et al.; Chemistry without Borders: Careers, Research, and Entrepreneurship ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2016.

Building a Global Technical Workforce - ACS Symposium Series

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