Publications

19 Oct 2012
Other Presentation

Building a Competitive Mexico: The Role of Business

By: Michael E. Porter

This presentation draws on ideas from Professor Porter's articles and books, in particular, The Competitive Advantage of Nations (The Free Press, 1990), "Building the Microeconomic Foundations of Competitiveness," in The Global Competitiveness Report... View Details

Keywords: Economics; Mexico

September 2015
Case

Doing Business in the Philippines

By: Andy Zelleke and Dawn H. Lau

This case provides an overview of some of the opportunities as well as challenges that those who plan to do business in the Philippines may face. It includes a summary of the current economic, political, and social situation in the country, and offers up-to-date... View Details

Keywords: Philippines; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Philippines

04 May 2020
Research & Ideas

Predictions, Prophets, and Restarting Your Business

and recovering from a crisis, increasing close rates, the efficiency of a sales model, and its segment focus are strategic issues, not only sales management tasks. Consider: when commerce resumes, what’s the impact on your business from... View Details

Keywords: by Frank V. Cespedes

July 2020 (Revised September 2021)
Case

Mr. Five Percent: Calouste Gulbenkian and the Origins of Global Oil

By: Geoffrey Jones and Yazeed Al-Rashed

This case describes the business career of Calouste Gulbenkian, a skilled intermediary who was able to secure 5 percent of a vast oil concession covering much of the Middle East that was signed in 1928. Gulbenkian was an ethnic Armenian born in the Ottoman Empire,... View Details

Keywords: Oil; Globalization; Energy Sources; History; Biography; Energy Industry; Turkey; Central Asia; Middle East

Research Summary

Business Strategy at the Base of the Pyramid

By: V. Kasturi Rangan

Rangan is studying how businesses create value for the 4.2 billion low income, and poorer income residents at the base of the global income pyramid. These are individuals who live on less than $5/day. Providing food, water, sanitation, healthcare, education, skills... View Details

2007
Working Paper

Acting Globally but Thinking Locally? The Influence of Local Communities on Organizations

By: Christopher Marquis and Julie Battilana

We develop an institutional theory of how local communities continue to matter for organizations, and why community factors are particularly important in a global age. Since globalization has taken center stage in both practitioner and academic circles, research has... View Details

Keywords: Geographic Location; Local Range; Globalization; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Business and Community Relations; Power and Influence

11 Oct 2006
Research & Ideas

U.S. Tops Business Competitiveness Index 2006

The United States and Germany remain atop the latest Business Competitiveness Index, with China continuing to slip in the rankings while India ascends, according to a report released from Harvard Business... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

2024
Working Paper

Private Regulation, Institutional Entrepreneurship and Climate Change: A Business History Perspective

By: Ann-Kristin Bergquist and Geoffrey Jones

Private regulatory systems, including voluntary efforts by firms to restrain their own behavior are the primary form of global climate change governance. However, when environmental challenges first rose up on the scientific and political agendas during the 1970s, the... View Details

Keywords: Certification; Climate Change; Environmental Regulation; Business History; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Policy

2017
Working Paper

Business History, the Great Divergence and the Great Convergence

By: Geoffrey Jones

This working paper provides a business history perspective on debates about the Great Divergence, the rise of the income gap between the West and the Rest, and the more recent Great Convergence, which has seen a narrowing of that gap. The literature on the timing and... View Details

Keywords: Business History; Economics; History; Wealth and Poverty; Developing Countries and Economies; Economic Growth

SSRN

01 Feb 2012
What Do You Think?

Is Support for Small Business Misplaced?

Summing Up Do Concerns About Job Creation By Small Businesses Miss The Point? Judging from responses to this month's column, there appears to be a visceral reaction to any suggestion that small business... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

February 2023 (Revised February 2025)
Case

Doing Business in New Delhi, India

By: Vikram S Gandhi and Radhika Kak

The case uses the example of Tata Motors to discuss the opportunities and challenges of doing business in India. View Details

Keywords: Business Cycles; Development Economics; Developing Countries and Economies; Economic Growth; Economic Sectors; Economy; Macroeconomics; Business History; India

December 1997 (Revised December 1997)
Case

Doing Business in China

By: Tarun Khanna and Danielle Melito Wu

Keywords: Globalized Economies and Regions; China

Find at Harvard

16 Nov 2009
Research & Ideas

The Times Captures History of American Business

have been touched by the powerful winds of change. Widespread recessions are not new, of course. The United States, like most other industrial countries, has been buffeted by business cycles in different... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Journalism & News

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

25 Sep 2006
Research & Ideas

How Software Platforms Revolutionize Business

Software Platforms Drive Innovation and Transform Industries, available October 4 from MIT Press. Evans is Managing Director of the Global Competitive Policy Practice at LEGC LLC. Hagiu is a professor in the Strategy unit at Harvard View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Video Game; Web Services

June 2007 (Revised August 2007)
Case

Royal DSM N.V.: Information Technology Enabling Business Transformation

By: Lynda M. Applegate, Edward Watson and Mara Vatz

Describes how Royal DSM NV, an $8 billion dollar global corporation, leveraged information technology to enable a major corporate portfolio transformation between 2000 and 2006. View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Transformation; Entrepreneurship; Globalized Firms and Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Information Technology

30 Nov 2021
In Practice

What's the Role of Business in Confronting Climate Change?

The 26th annual United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties, also known as COP26, ended with a hard-fought pact that called on businesses and governments to meet their climate change goals faster. The event followed an August report by the Intergovernmental... View Details

Keywords: by Lynn Schenk and Dina Gerdeman

November–December 2016
Article

The Impact of Patent Wars on Firm Strategy: Evidence from the Global Smartphone Industry

By: Yongwook Paik and Feng Zhu

Strategy scholars have documented in various empirical settings that firms seek and leverage stronger institutions to mitigate hazards and gain competitive advantage. In this paper, we argue that such “institution-seeking” behavior may not be confined to the pursuit of... View Details

Keywords: Patent Wars; Patent Litigation; Intellectual Property (IP) Enforcement; Institutions; Patent Thicket; Smartphone; Patents; Corporate Strategy; Mobile Technology