Publications

September 1995 (Revised April 1999)
Case

Exporting American Culture

By: Joseph L. Badaracco Jr. and Jerry Useem

A large entertainment company, extensively criticized for producing violent, offensive, and anti-social material, is considering whether to sell its material to a semi-illegal operation that is beaming satellite TV into Turkey. The opportunity raises many questions... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Forecasting and Prediction; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Media; Business and Community Relations; Opportunities; Social Issues; Media and Broadcasting Industry

June 2016 (Revised May 2017)
Case

FANUC Corporation: Reassessing the Firm's Governance and Financial Policies

By: Benjamin C. Esty, Nobuo Sato and Akiko Kanno

In February 2015, Daniel Loeb (a U.S.–based activist investor) announced his firm had a large investment in FANUC Corporation, a leading producer of industrial robots and software for machine tools. Loeb was demanding that the Japanese firm change its financial and... View Details

Keywords: Hedge Funds; Economic Policy; Investments; Government Policy; Deregulation; Financial Management; Valuation; Investment Funds; Policy; Corporate Governance; Macroeconomics; Investment Activism; Change Management; Financial Strategy; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Japan; United States

October 2000 (Revised July 2001)
Case

Avon Products (A)

By: Lynn S. Paine and Greg Rogers

The general manager of Avon Mexico, Fernando Lezama, must decide whether to promote a woman to the position of vice president of sales. If appointed, the candidate would be the first female in all of Latin America to hold an executive position and one of the first... View Details

Keywords: Business or Company Management; Leading Change; Salesforce Management; Organizational Culture; Job Design and Levels; Gender; Management Teams; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Mexico

September 1993 (Revised June 1994)
Case

Hewlett-Packard: Singapore (A)

By: Dorothy A. Leonard

In the over 20 years since Hewlett-Packard (HP) set up a manufacturing site in Singapore to produce calculators, HP has invested managerial talent and resources in developing its licensor into a technology development partner. The case details the growth of high-volume... View Details

Keywords: Information Technology; Multinational Firms and Management; Market Entry and Exit; Competency and Skills; Research and Development; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Product Development; Computer Industry; Singapore

Article

Was the Wealth of Nations Determined in 1000 B.C.?

By: Diego A. Comin, Bill Easterly and Erick Gong

We assemble a dataset on technology adoption in 1000 B.C., 0 A.D., and 1500 A.D. for the predecessors to today's nation states. We find that this very old history of technology adoption is surprisingly significant for today's national development outcomes. Our strong... View Details

Keywords: Cost Accounting; Information Technology; Technology Adoption; Growth and Development; Adoption; Business Strategy; Cost; Cost Management; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Culture; Technology Industry

Read Now

February 1997
Case

Enron Development Corporation: The Dabhol Power Project in Maharashtra, India (A) (Abridged)

By: Louis T. Wells Jr.

A large, lucrative power plant is negotiated for construction/operation by an American power company in India's evolving privatized power sector. The process of incorporating the project is captured in this case. The American company will own and operate the plant in... View Details

Keywords: Factories, Labs, and Plants; Transition; Energy Generation; Construction; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Emerging Markets; Negotiation Process; Production; Privatization; Energy Industry

September 1998 (Revised April 2001)
Case

Sealed Air Taiwan (A)

By: Lynn S. Paine and Robert J. Crawford

The general manager for U.S.-based Sealed Air Corp.'s Taiwan subsidiary must decide whether he's hired the right person to bridge the gap between Sealed Air's corporate culture and Taiwan's business culture. This case details Bob Kayser's experiences in trying to... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Relationships; Service Operations; Motivation and Incentives; Management Skills; Compensation and Benefits; Taiwan; United States

January 1985 (Revised March 2003)
Case

Conex do Brasil

By: Christopher A. Bartlett and John Young

Describes interactions between Brazilian local, Latin American regional, and USA headquarters staff during the three years after establishing a manufacturing subsidiary in Sao Paulo. In a highly protected national environment, a market entry plan is developed to meet... View Details

Keywords: Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Resignation and Termination; Goals and Objectives; Market Entry and Exit; Operations; Performance Expectations; Opportunities; Corporate Strategy; Latin America; United States; Brazil

2014
Working Paper

Bio-Piracy or Prospering Together? Fuzzy Set and Qualitative Analysis of Herbal Patenting by Firms

By: Prithwiraj Choudhury and Tarun Khanna

Since the 1990s, several Western firms have filed patents based on medicinal herbs from emerging markets, evoking protests from local stakeholders against 'bio-piracy'. We explore conditions under which firms and local stakeholders share rents from such patents. Our... View Details

Keywords: Rents From New Technology; Local Stakeholders; Herbal Patents; QCA; Fuzzy Set Analysis; Qualitative Case Studies; Plant-Based Agribusiness; Patents; Emerging Markets; Health Care and Treatment; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Pharmaceutical Industry

Read Now

2008
Working Paper

Spanning the Institutional Abyss: The Intergovernmental Network and the Governance of Foreign Direct Investment

By: Juan Alcacer and Paul Ingram

Global economic transactions such as foreign direct investment must extend over an institutional abyss between the jurisdiction, and therefore protection, of the states involved. Intergovernmental organizations (IGOs), whose members are states, represent an important... View Details

Keywords: International Finance; Foreign Direct Investment; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Governance Controls; International Relations; Social Issues

Read Now

January 2005 (Revised December 2005)
Case

KAMCO and the Cross-Border Securitization of Korean Non-Performing Loans

Covers the first international nonperforming loan securitization done in Korea. The CEO of KAMCO is trying to dispose of a portfolio of nonperforming commercial loans that the organization acquired from a number of banks. A group of investment bankers have proposed... View Details

Keywords: Debt Securities; Decision Choices and Conditions; Capital Markets; Financing and Loans; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Financial Services Industry; South Korea

March 2001 (Revised September 2002)
Case

Merck Latin America (C): Brazil

By: Michael Beer and James Weber

Examines Merck's change effort in Brazil from the perspective of the local employees. View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Multinational Firms and Management; Employees; Operations; Perspective; Pharmaceutical Industry; Brazil

June 1995
Case

Northern Telecom and Tong Guang Electronics (B): Building Success

By: Rosabeth M. Kanter and Pamela A. Yatsko

This case continues the story of the joint venture in China between Northern Telecom (Nortel) of Canada and Tong Guang Electronics of China. It shows how North Americans learned to operate in a very different cultural environment in China and provides an opportunity to... View Details

Keywords: Mobile and Wireless Technology; Joint Ventures; Change Management; Organizational Culture; Leadership; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Culture; Telecommunications Industry; Manufacturing Industry; Canada; China

April 1992 (Revised June 1993)
Case

Otis South Africa (A)

By: Michael Beer

Otis Worldwide CEO, George David, was frustrated with the slow pace of nonwhite advancement within Otis South Africa. After a few years of trying to elicit action from South African management, he decided to send a 28-year old U.S. employee to take over as the human... View Details

Keywords: Business Subsidiaries; Multinational Firms and Management; Race; Operations; Business Headquarters; Performance Improvement; Human Resources; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Industrial Products Industry; South Africa; United States

December 2014 (Revised April 2018)
Case

Dalian Wanda Group: The AMC Entertainment Acquisition (A)

By: Willy Shih

When Dalian Wanda Group of China announced its plan to acquire the AMC Entertainment theatrical exhibition chain in the United States, many people in the U.S. were mystified. Unlike China where theatrical exhibition was experiencing rapid growth, the U.S. market was... View Details

Keywords: Dalian Wanda Group; AMC Entertainment; Wang Jianlin; Theater Entertainment; Film Entertainment; Acquisition; Mergers and Acquisitions; Foreign Direct Investment; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Growth and Development Strategy; Business Strategy; Corporate Strategy; Expansion; Motion Pictures and Video Industry; China; United States

June–July 2014
Article

Language as a Lightning Rod: Power Contests, Emotion Regulation, and Subgroup Dynamics in Global Teams

By: Pamela J. Hinds, Tsedal Neeley and Catherine Durnell Cramton

Through an ethnographic study comprised of interviews with and observations of 96 globally distributed members in six software development teams, we propose a model that captures how asymmetries in language fluency contribute to an us vs. them dynamic so common in... View Details

Keywords: Equality and Inequality; Communication Intention and Meaning; Groups and Teams; Applications and Software; Emotions; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Power and Influence; Information Technology Industry

2010
Article

The Effect of Financial Development on the Investment Cash Flow Relationship: Cross-Country Evidence from Europe

We investigate financing constraints in a large cross-country data set covering most of the European economy. Firm-level investment sensitivity to cash flow is used to identify financing constraints. We find that the sensitivities are significantly positive, on... View Details

Keywords: Growth and Development; Development Economics; Investment; Cash Flow; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Relationships; Economy; Financial Markets; Business Subsidiaries; Capital Markets; Assets; Financing and Loans; Europe

30 Jan 2012
Research & Ideas

Measuring the Efficacy of the World’s Managers

Firms in the United States, Japan, and Germany tend to be managed especially well, while firms in Brazil, China, and India tend to be managed poorly. Those are among the initial findings of the World Management Survey (WMS), a huge international research initiative to... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

February 2001 (Revised March 2002)
Case

Korea First Bank (A)

In December 1999, Newbridge Capital, an equity investment fund based in San Francisco, successfully negotiated with the Korean government to acquire a controlling interest in Korea First Bank. It was the first time a foreign financial institution acquired a Korean... View Details

Keywords: Negotiation Process; Negotiation Participants; Foreign Direct Investment; Acquisition; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Banks and Banking; Banking Industry; San Francisco; South Korea