Globalization

Trade, capital, and information flows have stabilized, recovered, and even grown in the past year.

A major shift is occurring in the nature of global competition, but it’s widely misunderstood. Emerging markets are no longer competing solely on price—by offering the lowest-cost manufacturing, for instance. Rather, they are increasingly competing with sophisticated skills in key sectors like health care, software, entertainment, consumer products, and manufacturing. They’re leveraging a fast-growing ability […]

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As we shift away from the unique conditions that fueled global growth for the past 30 years, investors will need more capital — and more patience.

Data disproves the notion that the world has become more regionalized in recent years.

Five tips for positioning yourself in international markets.

Small and midsize companies that want to expand abroad often face a daunting task: finding the sweet spot between multinationals, with their extensive...

How openness to trade and participation in IMF programs influence the informal economy.

Procter & Gamble’s radical strategy of open innovation now produces more than 35% of the company’s innovations and billions of dollars in revenue.

Inequality, technology, and populism are changing everything.

Today, most multinationals have a conspicuous social conscience. They publicize their internal codes of conduct, monitor labor conditions in their global supply chains, and require suppliers to meet basic labor practice standards. But despite efforts to be better global citizens, companies by themselves are unable to eliminate abuses in their supply chains. In fact, so […]

In addition to product costs and supplier choices, today's managers need to consider geopolitics, logistics, sustainability, and suppliers' health.

Mom-and-pop store owners are partners, not competitors.

The first wave of foreign direct investment in China, in the 1980s, mostly took the form of joint ventures. A second wave followed in the 1990s in the form of greenfield wholly foreign-owned enterprises (WFOEs). Now a third wave of foreign direct investment—cross-border mergers and acquisitions—is gaining strength. Consider the forces driving this third wave. […]

And other things your company should care about this year.

Even the most-connected countries have a way to go.

Information industries are sexy, but they make lousy exporters.

Chinese business culture is unique, but not in all the ways outsiders tend to assume. To identify the most common myths, we interviewed dozens of North American and European expats as well as some Chinese managers now working in the West, all of whom have spent at least three years doing business in China. Our […]

As waves of immigrants come to developed countries from developing ones, many policy makers tend to focus on the downsides, such as strains on social services, competition for employment, and racial tensions. Largely overlooked is a huge emerging market that is spanning national borders: purchases and investments that bounce money back to expats’ homelands. This […]

The Trump administration’s tariffs are catching businesses off guard.

Novartis, the world's leading healthcare company, was formed in 1996 out of a merger of two very different, mid-tier Switzerland-based pharma companies....

HNA Group, the parent company of Hainan Airlines, was positioning itself to go global and make a mark for itself as the largest private airline in China....

With an almost forty-year history as a business in China, the Wanxiang Group has navigated through the significantly different political and economic...

In its first quarter of 2002, Wal-Mart became the largest company on the globe (by sales) and expanded into Japan. Was the giant retailer unstoppable?...

Dabur, an Indian consumer package goods company, had established a strong brand equity in India by offering, for decades, a vast portfolio of over-the-counter...

Since 1974, the Multifibre Arrangement (MFA) had been the systematic means for developed countries to restrict textiles and clothing imports from developing...

When Jeffrey Swartz became the third generation in his family to lead the Timberland Co., he pursued a strategy in which commerce and justice were "inextricably...

Chairman and CEO M. Douglas Ivester stumbles when he tells a Brazilian newsmagazine about a new Coke vending machine that can automatically raise prices...

The birth of "Modern Economic Growth" constituted a watershed in human history, allowing societies to escape the Malthusian impasse and permanently raise...

The Asian Newly Industrialised Economies (ANIEs)--Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore, and Hong Kong--have become masters and creators of advanced technologies...

The case describes the battle between Google, the world's leading search engine, and Baidu, a local entrepreneurial firm in China. In 2009, Baidu's internet...

This case discusses the evolving strategies in the mobile chipset industry in 2014, focusing on Qualcomm, the dominant technology company in the mobile...

Argentine confectionery manufacturer, Arcor Group, seeks to implement an international strategy but in 2003, while recovering from the Argentine financial...

Several new developments were threatening the success of Big Pharma. The patents on well-known blockbusters were reaching expiry, and generic manufacturers...

IBM needed a win. Facing flattening sales and increasing analyst concerns, the century-old giant that had reinvented itself so often before was in search...

Controlling about a third of global kiwifruit exports by volume and nearly half by value in 2018, Zespri was a grower-owned "corporatized cooperative"...

The Swiss company TAG Heuer, maker of luxury watches, is part of the LVMH group (Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton). In 2015, CEO Jean-Claude Biver is deciding...

The case describes the challenges that UBS faced as a result of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) investigation for tax fraud, that claimed that UBS...

Supplements the A Case 308-058. With an almost forty-year history as a business in China, the Wanxiang Group has navigated through the significantly different...

In the wake of the fraud conspiracy convictions of its former executives Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling, the name Enron will likely long be synonymous...

Trade, capital, and information flows have stabilized, recovered, and even grown in the past year.

Novartis, the world's leading healthcare company, was formed in 1996 out of a merger of two very different, mid-tier Switzerland-based pharma companies....

HNA Group, the parent company of Hainan Airlines, was positioning itself to go global and make a mark for itself as the largest private airline in China....

A major shift is occurring in the nature of global competition, but it’s widely misunderstood. Emerging markets are no longer competing solely on price—by offering the lowest-cost manufacturing, for instance. Rather, they are increasingly competing with sophisticated skills in key sectors like health care, software, entertainment, consumer products, and manufacturing. They’re leveraging a fast-growing ability […]

With an almost forty-year history as a business in China, the Wanxiang Group has navigated through the significantly different political and economic...

In its first quarter of 2002, Wal-Mart became the largest company on the globe (by sales) and expanded into Japan. Was the giant retailer unstoppable?...

Dabur, an Indian consumer package goods company, had established a strong brand equity in India by offering, for decades, a vast portfolio of over-the-counter...

Since 1974, the Multifibre Arrangement (MFA) had been the systematic means for developed countries to restrict textiles and clothing imports from developing...

When Jeffrey Swartz became the third generation in his family to lead the Timberland Co., he pursued a strategy in which commerce and justice were "inextricably...

Tell us what you think the protagonist should do.