Publications

2011
Working Paper

Managing Political Risk in Global Business: Beiersdorf 1914-1990

By: Geoffrey Jones and Christina Lubinski

This working paper examines corporate strategies of political risk management during the twentieth century. It focuses especially on Beiersdorf, a German-based pharmaceutical and skin care company. During World War I the expropriation of its brands and trademarks... View Details

Keywords: History; Risk Management; Business History; Multinational Firms and Management; Corporate Strategy; Intellectual Property; Cooperation; Business and Government Relations; Germany

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Course Development

By: Debora L. Spar

Managing International Trade and Investment

Despite the ease with which it is often conducted, doing business across borders is not the same as doing it at home. Rather, it entails a whole new set of managerial challenges: re-assessing competitive... View Details

12 Sep 2024
HBS Seminar

Jose Vasquez, London School of Economics

15 Jan 2008
First Look

First Look: January 15, 2008

product design, production, distribution, and system integration may be split up among hundreds or even thousands of firms. Different firms will design and produce the different components of a complex artifact (like the processor,... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

Program

Agribusiness Seminar

presents many challenges but also new possibilities for firms that can embrace innovation, develop new strategies, deliver value, and build resilience. For more than 60 years, business leaders from around the world have gathered for the... View Details

Keywords: Agriculture; Agriculture

14 Nov 2007
First Look

First Look: November 14, 2007

are increasingly paying attention to the aesthetic, symbolic, and emotional value of products, a value that is conveyed by the design language—that is, the combination of signs (e.g., form, colors, materials) that gives meaning to a product. As a consequence View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

December 2019 (Revised June 2024)
Case

The Dutch East India Company in 1612 (A)

By: Lynn S. Paine and Giuseppe Dari-Mattiacci

The Dutch East India Company’s board of directors must decide what to do about an impending legal requirement to liquidate the company’s assets and return to shareholders their capital and any profits earned during a ten-year lock-up period. The charter granted to the... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Governance; Globalized Firms and Management; Organizational Structure; Laws and Statutes; Financial Markets; Business and Shareholder Relations; Business and Government Relations; Business History; Shipping Industry; Netherlands

23 Oct 2007
First Look

First Look: October 23, 2007

misconceptions distort the popular understanding of U.S. multinationals in China. In this paper, we seek to correct four common misunderstandings by providing a statistical portrait of several aspects of U.S. affiliate activity in the... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

November 2008
Article

Winning the Race for Talent in Emerging Markets

By: Douglas A. Ready, Linda A. Hill and Jay A. Conger

"This war for talent is like nothing we've ever seen before," write the authors, who have spent decades studying talent management and leadership development. Recently they interviewed executives at more than 20 global companies to identify strategies for attracting... View Details

Keywords: Leadership Development; Selection and Staffing; Talent and Talent Management; Multinational Firms and Management; Organizational Culture; Recruitment; Diversity; Developing Countries and Economies

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22 Nov 2023
Research & Ideas

Humans vs. Machines: Untangling the Tasks AI Can (and Can't) Handle

Wharton School; Katherine Kellogg from MIT’s Sloan School of Management, and Hila Lifshitz-Assaf of Warwick Business School. Embedded inside a multinational consulting firm The researchers tested how 758... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne; Information Technology; Technology

December 2002 (Revised February 2005)
Case

Cap Gemini Ernst & Young (B): A Global Merger

By: Ashish Nanda

The negotiations for the merger between Cap Gemini and Ernst & Young conclude, resolving issues of how to bring together Ernst & Young consulting partnerships from all over the world into the publicly held Cap Gemini. Reactions to the merger were optimistic within Cap... View Details

Keywords: Partners and Partnerships; Negotiation; Multinational Firms and Management; Mergers and Acquisitions; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues

26 Mar 2008
First Look

First Look: March 26, 2008

levels of related expertise; (ii) subsidiaries exhibit significant heterogeneity in this expertise; and (iii) the subsidiaries are more diversified and less concentrated. We examine the efforts to diffuse pollution prevent practices exhibited by manufacturing View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

March 2013 (Revised May 2013)
Case

Omar Ishrak: Building Medtronic Globally

By: Bill George and Natalie Kindred

Omar Ishrak, Medtronic's first non-American CEO, aims to reinvigorate the medical device maker's growth by focusing on emerging markets, therapy innovation, and creative business models. In 2012, budget constraints in mature economies, the lack of new medical therapies... View Details

Keywords: Healthcare; Medical Devices; Medtronic; Globalization; Innovation; Reverse Innovation; Leadership; Multinational Firms and Management; Globalized Markets and Industries; Management Teams; Business Model; Emerging Markets; Global Strategy; Health Care and Treatment; Acquisition; Innovation and Invention; Manufacturing Industry; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry; China

09 Apr 2019
First Look

New Research and Ideas, April 9, 2019

Western firms sought access to resources, and they faced little political risk due to Western imperialism. The main risks were logistical due to infrastructure and technological inadequacies. During the Great Reversal between 1929 and... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

16 Oct 2007
First Look

First Look: October 16, 2007

Working PapersShamed and Able: How Firms Respond to Information Disclosure Authors:Aaron K. Chatterji and Michael W. Toffel. Abstract We apply institutional theory to explain how firms respond to... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

15 Aug 2006
First Look

First Look: August 15, 2006

general management at Harvard Business School. Publisher's site: http://books.mcgraw-hill.com/getbook.php?isbn=0073404977 Financial Constraints and Growth: Multinational and Local Firm Responses to Currency... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

09 Dec 2008
First Look

First Look: December 9, 2008

of Wall Street rather than developing nations. And the crisis raises questions about the development policies of Asian nations: Did too-close "crony" relations between politicians and owners of major banks or firms pave the way... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

Web

Technology & Operations Management - Faculty & Research

allocations of the current budget. Scaling to the population level, this equates to billions of dollars in funding—there are substantial gains from developing new ways of identifying and supporting productive scientists. 2025 Working Paper How View Details

November–December 2019
Article

Head, Heart or Hands: How Do Employees Respond to a Radical Global Language Change Over Time?

By: Sebastian Reiche and Tsedal Neeley

To understand how recipients respond to radical change over time across cognitive, affective, and behavioral dimensions, we conducted a longitudinal study of a mandated language change at a Chilean subsidiary of a large U.S. multinational organization. The... View Details

Keywords: Language; Communication; Change; Employees; Attitudes; Emotions; Globalized Firms and Management