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

Find at Harvard

May–June 2013
Article

Can Global Brands Create Just Supply Chains? Response: Promoting Political Mobilization

By: Jodi L. Short and Michael W. Toffel

Codes of conduct indicate that working conditions are improving overall at the factories being monitored by multinational corporations, and that these codes of conduct also create possibilities for political mobilization that can improve labor conditions more broadly. View Details

Read Now

November 1986 (Revised December 1992)
Case

Kentucky Fried Chicken (Japan) Ltd.

By: Christopher A. Bartlett

Describes the internationalization of the Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) fast food chain, focusing on KFC's entry into Japan. An entrepreneurial country general manager, Lou Weston, battles numerous problems to establish the business and is eventually highly successful.... View Details

Keywords: Business Subsidiaries; Entrepreneurship; Globalized Economies and Regions; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Policy; Market Entry and Exit; Strategic Planning; Agency Theory; Perspective; Corporate Strategy; Food and Beverage Industry; Japan

September 1997
Background Note

Note on Political Risk Analysis

By: Debora L. Spar

Describes the emergence and subsequent decline of the political risk analysis industry. Discusses what political risk means for multinational firms and various ways in which firms have tried to analyze and grapple with these risks. View Details

Keywords: Risk Management; Foreign Direct Investment; Government and Politics

24 May 2017
News

One Trick for Getting Bosses to Buy In to Your Idea

March 2005 (Revised March 2006)
Case

Foreign Exchange Hedging Strategies at General Motors: Competitive Exposures

By: Mihir A. Desai and Mark Veblen

How can a multinational firm analyze and manage currency risks that arise from competitive exposures? General Motors has a substantial competitive exposure to the Japanese yen. Although the risks GM faces from the depreciating yen are widely acknowledged, the company's... View Details

Keywords: Multinational Firms and Management; Currency Exchange Rate; Competition; Credit Derivatives and Swaps; International Finance; Financial Management; Investment Funds; Risk and Uncertainty; Auto Industry

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

Video

Vimal Shah

Vimal Shah, Co-Founder and Chairman of Bidco Africa, discusses the group’s strategic approach to marketing soap products in Kenya, targeting the bottom of the pyramid market with multiple brands at different price points to compete with large multinationals such as... View Details

17 Jan 2023
Cold Call Podcast

Nestlé’s KitKat Diplomacy: Neutrality vs. Shared Value

Keywords: Re: Geoffrey G. Jones; Consumer Products

21 Feb 2007
Op-Ed

What a U.N. Partnership with Big Business Could Accomplish

for a local business to flourish, it must invariably be connected to world markets, credit, and technology. That's why multinational corporations must play a critical role. The goal of poverty reduction will not be reached unless the... View Details

Keywords: by George C. Lodge & Craig Wilson

30 Jun 2019
Working Paper Summaries

The Comprehensive Effects of Sales Force Management: A Dynamic Structural Analysis of Selection, Compensation, and Training

Keywords: by Doug J. Chung, Byungyeon Kim, and Byoung G. Park

13 Oct 2010
News

Stimulus of $1 Trillion Adds Zero to Deficit

21 Oct 2010
News

Profiting from sexism

22 Jan 2007
Research & Ideas

The Immigrant Technologist: Studying Technology Transfer with China

picture of the micro-underpinnings of this phenomena. Q: What about multinational corporations? How do they fit into this scenario? A: One of the strongest trends of globalization is that U.S. multinationals... View Details

Keywords: Re: William R. Kerr; Technology; Computer

2018
Book

High-Skilled Migration to the United States and Its Economic Consequences

By: Gordon H. Hanson, William R. Kerr and Sarah Turner

Immigration policy is one of the most contentious public policy issues in the United States today. High-skilled immigrants represent an increasing share of the U.S. workforce, particularly in science and engineering fields. These immigrants affect economic growth,... View Details

Keywords: Immigration; Policy; Economics; Outcome or Result; United States

Find at Harvard

29 Sep 2017
Working Paper Summaries

International Business and Emerging Markets: A Long-Run Perspective

Keywords: by Geoffrey Jones

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

Research Summary

Intra-Industry Foreign Direct Investment (joint with Andrew Charlton)

By: Laura Alfaro

We identify a new type of vertical foreign direct investment (FDI) made up of multinational subsidiaries producing intermediate inputs, which are of similar skill intensity to the final goods produced by their parents, and which are overwhelmingly located in high skill... View Details

January 1988 (Revised February 1991)
Case

International Sourcing at Intercon

Describes the many international sourcing initiatives in a multinational connector manufacturing company. Focuses on the domestic operations, international staff, and their initiatives to create cooperative links among and with independent subsidiaries. Students can... View Details

Keywords: Business Subsidiaries; Multinational Firms and Management; Supply Chain Management; Manufacturing Industry; Japan