An examination of the technology of specialised soft skill sets deployed in business sectors from four different regions of the globe

Our central objective in this paper is twofold: first, to examine the scholarly literature on the technological importance of soft skills in Business, and second, to review the major research studies on the views of employers and the industries they serve regarding the specific character and combination sets of key soft skills best suited for business professionals located in four distinct and economically vibrant major business regions of the world. The key findings have been distilled from the literature and analysed to identify patterns of congruence, with the aim of cataloguing reasonably discrete combinatory sets of soft skills ideally suited to the specific business priorities which characterise these four different regions. The concluding section of the paper will consider the extent to which these distinct skill sets can be pedagogically developed in such a way that they become deeply embedded as foundational in the creation of an international business school curriculum, featuring five discrete sets of soft skills, each of which is ideally constructed for one of the four different regions.