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New research on business globalization from Harvard Business School faculty on issues including strategy and tactics, executive skills, risk management.
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Free Trade Needs Nurturing—and Other Lessons from History

by Staff

Global free trade is not the natural order of things, so it needs to be carefully tended to and maintained. Sophus Reinert and Dante Roscini discuss trade over time and what history teaches. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

Towards a New Approach for Upgrading Europe’s Competitiveness

by Christian Ketels and Michael E. Porter

Is the EU’s model of European integration a driver or a barrier towards higher European prosperity? This paper analyzes why the integration model that was successful in the past has lost effectiveness, and sets out strategic principles to guide a new approach. Integration remains key for upgrading European competitiveness, but needs to move towards a new form.

Shifting Centers of Gravity: Host Country versus Headquarters Influences on MNC Subsidiary Knowledge Inheritance

by Prithwiraj Choudhury, Mike Horia Teodorescu, and Tarun Khanna

This study compares how multinational corporation subsidiaries inherit knowledge from both the headquarters and the local context. To do so the authors analyzed seven years of data (2005–2011) of US patents filed by all subsidiaries of the top 25 US headquartered multinationals.

Op-Ed: The Trouble with Tariffs

by Willy C. Shih

The world's economies are interconnected by globalization, which makes threats of tariff wars doubly dangerous, says Willy Shih. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

Trump’s Populism: What Business Leaders Need To Understand

Re: Rafael M. Di Tella

Whether you are a fan of populism or not, it is vital for business leaders to understand the debate around it, says Rafael Di Tella in our latest Cold Call podcast. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

The New History of American Capitalism

Re: Sven Beckert

Historians are taking a new look at capitalism in light of its adoption in most of the developed world. From the edited volume American Capitalism: New Histories, by Sven Beckert and Christine Desan, the authors delve into the evolution of these new historic views. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

Language and Globalization: The Mandate to Speak English at Rakuten

Re: Tsedal Neeley

Japan’s largest online retailer, Rakuten, is rapidly expanding into global markets and requiring all employees, where ever they are located, to conduct business in English. Tsedal Neeley discusses the strong connection between language and globalization. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

How Economic Clusters Drive Globalization

by Julia Hanna

Historical research by Valeria Giacomin shows that industrial clusters, often cited in explaining local economic growth, have had a much wider impact, especially in developing countries. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

International Business and Emerging Markets: A Long-Run Perspective

by Geoffrey Jones

This paper examines how strategies by Western multinational enterprises in emerging markets over the last century have been shaped by context. These strategies evolved from resolving logistical challenges to managing assertive governments. More recently the focus has been to locate activities in the lower end of global value chains, whilst responding to local competitors.

A Historical Approach to Clustering in Emerging Economies

by Valeria Giacomin

Clusters are geographically concentrated and interlinked agglomerations of specialized firms in a particular domain. This paper argues that long-term studies of clusters in developing countries are necessary to explain the relevance of clusters for the activities of multinational enterprises, making of global business, and building of an integrated marketplace.

Monetary Policy and Global Banking

by Falk Bräuning and Victoria Ivashina

Global banks commonly move funds across markets to respond to differential monetary policy changes. This paper finds that cross-currency flows affect the cost of foreign exchange hedging, ultimately affecting credit supply in different currencies. The traditional view of how global banks respond to local shocks is weakened and, for major currencies, breaks down.

Is China About to Overtake the US for World Trade Leadership?

by James Heskett

SUMMING UP. It's better for the United States if China is an economic ally rather than a competitor for world trade leadership, James Heskett's readers conclude. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

Can China Maintain Its Economic Power?

by Deborah Blagg

Professor F. Warren McFarlan made his first visit to China in 1979 and has been returning ever since. He discusses the country's market-based reforms and its challenges to further growth. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

Political Dysfunction Makes America Less Competitive

by Dina Gerdeman

The American economy is “failing the test of competitiveness," according to a new Harvard Business School study written by Michael E. Porter, Jan W. Rivkin, and Mihir A. Desai. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

What Brands Can Do to Monitor Factory Conditions of Suppliers

by Michael Blanding

For better or for worse, it’s fallen to multinational corporations to police the overseas factories of suppliers in their supply chains—and perhaps make them better. Michael W. Toffel examines how. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

Location Fundamentals, Agglomeration Economies, and the Geography of Multinational Firms

by Laura Alfaro and Maggie Xiaoyang Chen

Understanding the location interdependence of multinational firms and how they agglomerate with one another is critical to designing and improving economic policies. These authors’ analysis, using a worldwide plant-level dataset and a novel index of agglomeration, yields a number of insights into the economic geography of multinational production. In addition to market access and comparative advantage motives, multinationals' location choices are significantly affected by agglomeration economies including not only vertical production linkages but also technology diffusion and capital-market externalities.

How to Fix a Broken Global Team

Re: Tsedal Neeley

On a Cold Call podcast, professor Tsedal Neeley discusses her recent case study about a manager charged with corralling a hugely diverse, underperforming group and leading it back to success on a global scale. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

How Do We Pay for the Costs of Globalization?

by James L. Heskett

SUMMING UP The benefits of globalization outweigh the problems it causes, but James Heskett's readers are far from united on how to the fix human and societal costs. What do YOU think? Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

Solving an Economic Mystery Surrounding Argentina and Chile

by Sean Silverthorne

At the dawn of the twentieth century, Argentina was one of the richest countries in the world. In the twenty-first century, it is struggling, its economy eclipsed by Chile. A new book by Geoffrey Jones and Andrea Lluch helps explain the “Argentina Paradox” and the influence of globalism. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

The Globalization of Angel Investments: Evidence across Countries

by Josh Lerner, Antoinette Schoar, Stanislav Sokolinksi & Karen Wilson

Examining a cross-section of 13 angel groups who considered transactions across 21 countries, this study finds that angel investors have a positive impact on the growth of the firms they fund, their performance, and survival, while the selection of firms that apply for angel funding varies across countries.