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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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The Historian Who Came in from the Cold

by Dina Gerdeman

While much has been written about the conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War, Jeremy S. Friedman’s Shadow Cold War: The Sino-Soviet Competition for the Third World is the first book to explore in detail the significance of the “Second Cold War” that China and the Soviet Union fought in the shadow of the communist and capitalist struggle. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

Internalizing Global Value Chains: A Firm-Level Analysis

by Laura Alfaro, Pol Antras, Davin Chor & Paola Conconi

Manufacturing activities that used to be performed in close proximity are increasingly fragmented across firms and countries. This paper provides strong evidence that considerations driven by contractual frictions critically shape firms' ownership decisions along their value chains.

Six Lessons from Mobile Money Ventures in Developing Countries

by Dina Gerdeman

Improving access to financial services for the poor in developing countries seems an unmet market need. So why are so many mobile money efforts failing? Rajiv Lal says the problem begins with Marketing 101. Open for comment; 0 Comment(s) posted.

Explaining China's Crash

by Christina Pazzanese

After a decade of massive growth, China’s stock market began a precipitous summer slide that that hasn't slowed yet. Dante Roscini explains what's deflating markets worldwide. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.

Globalization Hasn’t Killed the Manufacturing Cluster

by Roberta Holland

In today's global markets, companies have many choices to procure what they need to develop, build, and sell product. So who needs a manufacturing cluster, such as Detroit? Research by Gary Pisano and Giulio Buciuni shows that in some industries, location still matters. Open for comment; 0 Comment(s) posted.

The Future of the Greek Economy

by Laura Alfaro, Dante Roscini & George Serafeim

Before last weekend's referendum in Greece, Laura Alfaro, Dante Roscini, and George Serafeim explored the country's economic, social, and political crisis. Their insights still stand, even as Greece's situation changes hour by hour. Open for comment; 4 Comment(s) posted.

Kids Benefit From Having a Working Mom

by Carmen Nobel

Women whose moms worked outside the home are more likely to have jobs themselves, are more likely to hold supervisory responsibility at those jobs, and earn higher wages than women whose mothers stayed home full time, according to research by Kathleen McGinn and colleagues. Open for comment; 33 Comment(s) posted.

Leadership Lessons From Outer Space

by Carmen Nobel

Beaming in from space via teleconference, International Space Station Commander Terry Virts discusses leadership, technology, and thunderstorms with professors and students at Harvard Business School. Open for comment; 2 Comment(s) posted.

Reforming Greece: Myths and Truths

by George Serafeim

Greece has largely its leaders to blame for the country's economic crisis, but Europe could help the entire region with some well-targeted aid, says George Serafeim. Open for comment; 1 Comment(s) posted.

The Fall of Greece

by George Serafeim

When the Syriza party emerged victorious in Greece's national election last week, many citizens rejoiced at the promise of an easing of austerity measures. Professor George Serafeim believes having fresh people in government is a positive development, but fears they could point the country backward, away from competition and free-market forces. Open for comment; 10 Comment(s) posted.

A Manager’s Guide to International Strategy

by Julia Hanna

In a new book on international strategy, David Collis details the four strategic questions that need to be answered by managers in multinationals. Open for comment; 3 Comment(s) posted.

The Big Influence of Small Countries in the United Nations Secretariat

by Michael Blanding

Who calls the shots at the United Nations Secretariat? A new study by Eric Werker and Paul Novosad on the nationalities of senior staff draws surprising conclusions about the influence of smaller countries compared with world powers. Open for comment; 2 Comment(s) posted.

Who Runs the International System? Power and the Staffing of the United Nations Secretariat

by Paul Novosad & Eric Werker

National governments frequently pull strings to get their citizens appointed to senior positions in international institutions. For the United Nations' executive arm, the Secretariat—which plays a plays a key role in agenda-setting for the various deliberative UN organs, as well as managing global peace-keeping operations—there is keen competition among nations over the staffing of approximately 80 senior positions. Which nations therefore have been successful in controlling this institution? What factors have allowed them to do so? In this paper the authors examine the nationality of the most senior officials in the United Nations Secretariat over the last sixty years. Findings show that democracies, countries that invest in bilateral diplomacy, and economically/militarily powerful countries are the most effective at placing staff in the Secretariat. Furthermore, Western Europe and its offshoots have retained control over a disproportionate share of positions in the Secretariat even while their share of global GDP and population has fallen. Key concepts include: The power to control international institutions is of significant concern to governments around the world. The United Nations is arguably the world's most representative international organization. Even so, it was set up by a particular set of nations, the victors of the second world war, with the goal of sustaining a certain kind of world order. In spite of significant changes in the balance of global economic power over the past decades, the post-World War II balance of control at the United Nations has been largely sustained. Nordic countries are in a far more influential international position than the size of their population or economy would suggest. Top positions are dominated by rich democracies: the five most overrepresented countries in the Secretariat are Sweden, Norway, Finland, New Zealand, and Ireland. The United States is overrepresented, and China is significantly underrepresented. In spite of the decline in US influence, the Secretariat remains pro-American relative to the world at large. Closed for comment; 0 Comment(s) posted.

Learning From Japan’s Remarkable Disaster Recovery

by Sean Silverthorne

Harvard Business School students make an annual trek to businesses in the Japanese area wrecked by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. Their objectives: learn all they can about human resilience and share their own management knowledge. Closed for comment; 0 Comment(s) posted.

Profits and Economic Development

by Dan Schwab & Eric Werker

"Without development there is no profit, without profit no development," wrote economist and political scientist Joseph Schumpeter in his landmark book The Theory of Economic Development. An open question, however, has been whether excess profits—known as rents—are good for development. Economic theory thus far supports both sides of the argument, yielding conflicting advice for competition policy and anticorruption efforts. This paper examines the question by analyzing a comprehensive industry—level dataset of manufacturing sectors—and by applying methods of the competition-and-growth scholarship of economist Philippe Aghion and colleagues. This approach allows the analysis of industry-level profitability (as opposed to individual firms) and the overall growth of the economy. Evidence suggests that rents, as measured by a high-markup that is also an indication of low competition, seem to slow growth in productivity or output. The effect is strongest in poor countries. Higher rents are associated with a slower removal of tariffs, implying that firms rent-seek to prevent competition and maintain their high margins. This investment in rent-seeking may be in lieu of investment in innovation or new productive assets, which slows the overall growth of the sector. Furthermore, in industries in which high profits should be essential in generating growth, those sectors that would otherwise need external finance but in a country with weak financial markets, the negative impact of rents on growth is especially strong. Findings also show that countries with more rents in the manufacturing sector grow slower even when other controls are introduced. Key concepts include: What may be good for the players in one industry may not be good for the economy at large. A country's average mark-up is a strong negative predictor of future economic growth. Poor countries grow faster than rich countries because of the benefits of catch-up, but those countries also tend to have higher rents, which slows growth. Developing countries have a tailwind from being poor in the catch-up sense, but a headwind from being poor through an inferior political economy of rent-seeking business. Closed for comment; 0 Comment(s) posted.

To Pay or Not to Pay: Argentina and the International Debt Market

by Laura Alfaro

Argentina's escalating financial crisis seems rocketing toward disaster. The fix? Finance Professor Laura Alfaro, who served as Minister of National Planning and Economic Policy in Costa Rica, recommends a radical solution sure to anger banks and fund managers: absolute sovereign immunity, Open for comment; 2 Comment(s) posted.

China’s Economic System has Difficult Road Overcoming its Political System

by Michael Blanding

It's fashionable to be bullish on China. But the new book "Can China Lead?" urges a more cautious view on the prospects of the country, where government bureaucracy stifles innovation. Open for comment; 0 Comment(s) posted.

Book Excerpt: ‘Can China Lead?’

Re: William C. Kirby, F. Warren McFarlan

Creativity and innovation can be nurtured in different educational and institutional settings, but does China have a good institutional framework for innovation? An excerpt from Can China Lead? Closed for comment; 0 Comment(s) posted.

The Surprising Link Between Language and Corporate Responsibility

by Michael Blanding

Research by Christopher Marquis shows that a company's degree of social responsibility is affected by a surprising factor—the language it uses to communicate. Closed for comment; 21 Comment(s) posted.

Book Excerpt: ’Entrepreneurship and Multinationals’

Re: Geoffrey G. Jones

An excerpt from Entrepreneurship and Multinationals: Global Business and the Making of the Modern World, by Geoffrey Jones. Closed for comment; 0 Comment(s) posted.