Publications

January–March 2025
Article

Transitioning from Responsible and Reactive to Deeply Responsible and Proactive International Business

By: Geoffrey G. Jones, Teresa da Silva Lopes, Pavida Pananond, Rob van Tulder, Noemi Sinkovics and Rudolf R. Sinkovics

This article aims to explore the role of multinational enterprises in addressing grand societal challenges, emphasizing the need for integrating environmental and social aspects into business models. It offers an analysis of how principles and values can guide engaged... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Business Model; Multinational Firms and Management

25 Feb 2002
Research & Ideas

MNCs in Asia: Investing in the Future

The unparalleled size of Asia's markets has always caught the eye of multinational corporations. More recently, as government policies and cultural attitudes in the region continue to evolve, the strategies of View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna

June 2011 (Revised November 2014)
Case

Vehbi Koç and the Making of Turkey's Largest Business Group

By: Asli M. Colpan and Geoffrey Jones

The case describes the creation of Turkey's largest business group by Vehbi Koç. The foundation of this group in the interwar years, and its subsequent diversification into many industries, including automobiles, household goods, and services, is analysed. The case... View Details

Keywords: Emerging Markets; Entrepreneurship; Globalization; Organizational Structure; Diversification; Manufacturing Industry; Turkey

Article

Control, Performance, and Knowledge Transfers in Large Multinationals: Unilever in the United States, 1945-1980

By: G. Jones

This article considers key issues relating to the organization and performance of large multinational firms in the post-Second World War period. Although foreign direct investment is defined by ownership and control, in practice the nature of that "control" is far from... View Details

Keywords: Multinational Firms and Management; Governance Controls; Performance; Business or Company Management; Ownership; Consumer Products Industry; Manufacturing Industry; United States

December 1997 (Revised January 1998)
Exercise

COO and Country Manager Job Selection Exercise

By: Hugo Uyterhoeven

From seven candidates, students must choose two who are most qualified for the COO position at an entrepreneurial Danish multinational organization, and two who are the best choices for country manager in Vietnam for the company. View Details

Keywords: Selection and Staffing; Experience and Expertise; Multinational Firms and Management

February 2008 (Revised November 2015)
Case

Danaher Corporation

By: Bharat Anand, David J. Collis and Sophie Hood

Between 1985 and 2007, Danaher has been one of the best-performing industrial conglomerates in the U.S. This case examines the corporate strategy of this diversified, global corporation. It describes the firm's portfolio strategy and the Danaher Business System—a... View Details

Keywords: Business Conglomerates; Global Strategy; Multinational Firms and Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Organizational Culture; Corporate Strategy; Value Creation

13 Nov 2012
First Look

First Look: November 13

Thomke Publication:Harvard Business Review 90, no. 11 (November 2012) Abstract An abstract is unavailable at this time. Read the article: http://hbr.org/2012/11/mumbais-models-of-service-excellence/ar/1 Working PapersThe Global Agglomeration of View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

Research Summary

Profitable Souls: Foreign Investment and the Fate of Human Rights

By: Debora L. Spar

This is a project about foreign investment, about what happens when big multinational firms invest in small, poor, and often nasty places. Typically, most observers assume that this is a largely negative relationship: that multinationals exploit the local population,... View Details

January 2002 (Revised October 2005)
Case

General Electric Medical Systems 2002

By: Tarun Khanna and James Weber

Discusses one of General Electric's flagship divisions--the world's leading provider of medical diagnostic imaging equipment. Provides an opportunity to examine a multinational confronting massive technological and demographic changes around the world. Genomics has... View Details

Keywords: Information Technology; Business Model; Change Management; Multinational Firms and Management; Genetics; Customer Value and Value Chain; Age; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry; China; United States

26 Sep 2018
Working Paper Summaries

Shifting Centers of Gravity: Host Country versus Headquarters Influences on MNC Subsidiary Knowledge Inheritance

Keywords: by Prithwiraj Choudhury, Mike Horia Teodorescu, and Tarun Khanna

January 2011
Article

Does Intellectual Property Rights Reform Spur Industrial Development?

By: Lee G. Branstetter, Ray Fisman, C. Fritz Foley and Kamal Saggi

An extensive theoretical literature generates ambiguous predictions concerning the effects of intellectual property rights (IPR) reform on industrial development. The impact depends on whether multinational enterprises (MNEs) expand production in reforming countries... View Details

Keywords: Development Economics; Foreign Direct Investment; Multinational Firms and Management; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Intellectual Property; Rights; Production; Expansion; United States

Read Now

August 2007 (Revised July 2008)
Case

HCL Technologies (A)

By: Linda A. Hill, Tarun Khanna and Emily Stecker

When Vineet Nayar became president of HCL Technologies, a global IT services business, in April 2005, he knew the company needed drastic change. Since its founding as a hardware company in the 1970s, HCL had grown into an enterprise with $3.7 billion in revenues and a... View Details

Keywords: Customer Relationship Management; Multinational Firms and Management; Employee Relationship Management; Leading Change; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Competition; Information Technology Industry; Service Industry; India

08 Aug 2011
Research & Ideas

The Death of the Global Manager

ears around the world is critical” Nearly 20 years later and in its sixth edition, Bartlett's case-filled textbook (which he describes as a "continuing passion") offers the opportunity to reexamine the ever-changing nature of View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna

2013
Book

Entrepreneurship and Multinationals: Global Business and the Making of the Modern World

By: Geoffrey Jones

This book examines the history of entrepreneurship and multinationals in the making of the modern world. In recent years economists, historians, and political scientists have written extensively on the history of globalization and patterns of global wealth and poverty,... View Details

Article

Toward Resource Independence—Why State-Owned Entities Become Multinationals: An Empirical Study of India's Public R&D Laboratories

By: Prithwiraj Choudhury and Tarun Khanna

In this paper, we build on the standard resource dependence theory and its departure suggested by Vernon to offer a novel explanation for why state-owned entities (SOEs) might seek a global footprint and global cash flows: to achieve resource independence from... View Details

Keywords: Multinational Firms and Management; Resource Allocation; Supply Chain; State Ownership; Growth and Development Strategy; India

October 1995 (Revised March 1996)
Case

Booz.Allen & Hamilton: Vision 2000

In 1993, Booz.Allen & Hamilton forsook its previous, highly local organizational structure. It was motivated by a desire to serve multinational clients more effectively and to provide greater value to clients with more localized business by collecting best practices... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Service Operations; Service Delivery; Organizational Structure; Global Strategy; Service Industry

31 Mar 2022
Op-Ed

Navigating the ‘Bermuda Triangle’ in Professional Services

profitability for its partners. And then we have the multinational Magic Circle firm Linklaters, which offers seamless, cross-jurisdictional, cross-practice legal services to its clients, the opportunity to... View Details

Keywords: by Ashish Nanda

December 1997
Case

Intercontinental Breweries (Abridged)

By: Thomas R. Piper

A senior executive of a U.S. multinational is attempting to develop a set of financial, operating, and ownership arrangements that will be acceptable to the management and employees of a major Polish company and to the Ministry of Privatization. The arrangements must... View Details

Keywords: Agreements and Arrangements; Multinational Firms and Management; Joint Ventures; Food and Beverage Industry; Poland; United States

July 2020 (Revised March 2021)
Case

Board Diversity at Amazon (A)

By: Aiyesha Dey and Anu Atluru

The case revolves around the decisions that the board of directors of ecommerce giant Amazon would need to make in response to the controversial letter that activist shareholder CtW investment group sent to Amazon’s shareholders, urging them to vote in favor of a... View Details

Keywords: Board Of Directors; Boards; Governing and Advisory Boards; Diversity; Gender; Race; United States