Publications

January 2008 (Revised November 2009)
Case

China's Evolving Labor Laws (A)

By: Lynn Sharp Paine and Aldo Sesia Jr.

The (A) case describes key provisions of the new labor contract law proposed by China's National People's Congress in 2006. The case invites students to consider how domestic and multinational companies should respond to the Chinese government's invitation to comment... View Details

Keywords: Multinational Firms and Management; Government Legislation; Labor; Contracts; Laws and Statutes; Business and Government Relations; China

1991
Book

Multinational and International Banking

By: G. Jones

The essays in this volume explore the historical evolution of multinational and international banking. Contemporary studies, and most writers on the theory of multinational banking, focus on US data, yet historically European financial institutions were the leaders in... View Details

Keywords: Banks and Banking; Multinational Firms and Management; Analytics and Data Science; Opportunities; Theory; Banking Industry; Europe; United States

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01 Jun 2012
News

Faculty Research Online

HBS Cases: Overcoming the Stress of ‘Englishnization’ CEOs of global companies increasingly mandate that their employees learn English. The problem: these workers can experience a loss of status and believe they aren’t as effective in... View Details

Keywords: Clothing and Clothing Accessories Stores; Retail Trade

01 Mar 2017
News

Research Brief: Lost in Translation

In an increasingly global business world, English is the lingua franca that tethers companies and their investors together. Executives without a deep fluency in English could be costing their companies more than they realize. According to... View Details

Keywords: Erin Peterson

June 2013 (Revised March 2014)
Case

Inditex: 2000

By: John R. Wells and Galen Danskin

In 2000, Inditex was one of the largest specialty apparel retailers in the world, with $2.4 billion in sales from 1,080 stores across 33 countries. Zara, Inditex's main brand, produced popular designer items at a fraction of design-house prices and could push an item... View Details

Keywords: Fashion; Fashion Industry; Succession; IPO; Competition; Initial Public Offering; Multinational Firms and Management; Management Succession; Growth and Development Strategy; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Retail Industry

February 2002 (Revised February 2002)
Case

Morgan Stanley Japan, 2002

By: Tarun Khanna and Louis P. DiLorenzo, Jr

Thierry Porte, president of Morgan Stanley Japan, had spent the brisk November day in Tokyo with Eric Best, Morgan Stanley's head of scenario planning, outlining the exercise that all of the managing directors in Japan would participate in shortly. Japan remained mired... View Details

Keywords: Planning; Economic Slowdown and Stagnation; Investment Banking; Multinational Firms and Management; Banking Industry; Financial Services Industry; Japan; United States

01 Oct 1999
News

Culture Clash: Exploring Cross Cultural Conflicts in Business

course-development project in 1997. Writing cases on firms in China, Japan, Thailand, Argentina, Nigeria, and Russia, she focused on businesses indigenous to each culture as well as multinationals moving between cultures. She chose... View Details

Keywords: Judith A. Ross

24 Mar 2002
Lessons from the Classroom

Case Study: A Lesson in Private Venture Financing

capital. Would it be a better idea to ride the wave of globalization and try to get acquired by a multinational corporation? Or should the firm remain privately owned and focus its growth in Africa? After... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna

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

February 2007 (Revised July 2009)
Case

Leadership at WildChina (A)

WildChina (A) tells the story of Mei Zhang, a Chinese-born HBS alumna, and her pursuit of a dream: to share her passion for travel, her appreciation of China's beauty and culture, and her desire to start her own business. Describes the startup of WildChina, a tour... View Details

Keywords: Globalized Firms and Management; Leadership; Management Succession; Entrepreneurship; Business Startups; Tourism Industry; Los Angeles; Beijing

May 2003 (Revised May 2004)
Case

Submarino.com (B)

By: Lynda M. Applegate and Luiz Felipe Monteiro

Supplements the (A) case. View Details

Keywords: Organizational Design; Globalized Firms and Management; Management Skills; Growth Management; Retail Industry; Web Services Industry; Brazil; Argentina; Mexico; Spain; Portugal

March 2019
Case

Dabur India: Growing Professional Management from Family Roots

By: Suraj Srinivasan, Namrata Arora and Jonah Goldberg

The case opens in December of 2018, with Sunil Duggal, the CEO of Dabur India (a multinational consumer goods conglomerate with a focus in Ayurvedic products) contemplating who should succeed him at the head of the company. The new CEO will have been the first since... View Details

Keywords: Family Business; Management Succession; Multinational Firms and Management; Business Growth and Maturation

April 1998
Case

Becton Dickinson: Worldwide Blood Collection Team (Abridged)

By: Clayton M. Christensen

Becton Dickinson's Vacutainer business was largely based in the United States, but in 1980 management determined to grow the business aggressively first in Europe and then Japan. These areas demanded new products that were tailored to local markets. Despite the change... View Details

Keywords: Resource Allocation; Growth and Development Strategy; Change Management; Product Development; Global Strategy; Expansion; Innovation and Invention; Multinational Firms and Management; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry; United States; Europe; Japan

01 Sep 2004
News

Promise & Perils

making. In 1979, he was part of the first, small HBS delegation to visit a newly opened China. “It was the single most important trip of our lives,” he recalled. He glimpsed the future, and it now has come to pass: China has emerged as an economic force of major View Details

Keywords: Roger Thompson; Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools; Educational Services

March 1995 (Revised March 1995)
Case

Smashing the Cube: Corporate Transformation at CIBA-GEIGY Ltd.

By: David J. Collis and Elizabeth Wynne Johnson

CIBA-GEIGY is a large, diversified multinational corporation that transforms itself in the 1990s through a massive structural and cultural change. The case describes the changes implemented and the processes used to effect change in portfolio, people, and structures.... View Details

Keywords: Restructuring; Change Management; Transformation; Investment Portfolio; Multinational Firms and Management; Organizational Culture; Corporate Strategy

June 1989 (Revised July 1993)
Case

CIGNA Worldwide

By: John A. Quelch

A CIGNA Worldwide (CWW) task group of European country directors and key functional managers is meeting in November 1988 to discuss how CWW should respond to the European Community's plan to remove existing internal barriers and restrictions to the free flow of goods... View Details

Keywords: Multinational Firms and Management; Insurance; Competitive Strategy; Emerging Markets; Trade; Insurance Industry; Europe

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January 1973 (Revised March 2006)
Case

Tyler Abrasives, Inc.

Involves multinational pricing policy. Should a multinational industrial products supplier, with plants on several continents, grant a single worldwide price on given products to multinational customers who purchase on several continents? If so, what should the... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Marketing Strategy; Price; Multinational Firms and Management; Sales; Industrial Products Industry

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

January 2001 (Revised August 2003)
Case

Diageo plc

A major U.K.-based multinational is reevaluating its leverage policy as it restructures its business. The treasury team models the tradeoffs between the benefits and costs of debt financing, using Monte Carlo simulation to estimate the savings from the interest tax... View Details

Keywords: Cost vs Benefits; Multinational Firms and Management; Capital Structure; Restructuring; United Kingdom