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The Global Initiative

Established in 1996, the Global Initiative builds on a legacy of global engagement by supporting the HBS community of faculty, students, and alumni in their work, encouraging a global outlook in research, study, and practice.

With its rich heritage of global leadership in management education and research, Harvard Business School (HBS) is deeply rooted in the international economy. Working closely with companies, universities, and governments, the School and its faculty help shape the perspective, knowledge, and insight of managers throughout the world.

A History of Global Leadership
Throughout its history, Harvard Business School has been a leader in developing practice-oriented research for management education. Using the case method method of teaching, the School has trained tens of thousands of leaders in business, government, and academia. HBS has also helped guide the establishment of leading business schools in Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, and Asia.

  • 2000 - present
    2013 34% of the class of 2014 is international, from 68 countries.

    Nearly 30 percent of alumni live overseas, and 106 alumni clubs and associations are flourishing in 39 countries.
    2010 Harvard Center Shanghaiestablished in Shanghai
    2008 The School's Centennial year culminates in the Global Business Summit on October 12-14 2008. The Business Summit features thought-provoking discourse, debate, and insight into the seminal topics facing the global community.

    Throughout 2008 HBS alumni clubs in 30 countries mark the Centennial with events, projects, and leadership initiatives.

    On April 8, 2008, the HBS community celebrates the Centennial anniversary of the School - 100 years to the day the Harvard University Board of Overseers voted to establish the business school and appointed its first dean - with a day-long event for the immediate HBS community, including students, faculty and staff.
    2006-
    1997     		The School expands its global impact by establishing research centers in key regions to help faculty enrich the global curriculum.
    2006 India Research Centerestablished in Mumbai.
    2004 Gayle and Robert F. Greenhill (MBA Class of 1962) establish the Gayle and Robert F. Greenhill Family Endowment for Global Research. The first major gift of its kind, it provides permanent funding to support the School's international research and course development activities.
    2003 Europe Research Centerestablished in Paris.
    2002 Japan Research Centerestablished in Tokyo.
    2000 Latin America Research Centerestablished in Buenos Aires.
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  • 1975 - 99
    1999 Asia-Pacific Research Centerestablished in Hong Kong.
    1997 California Research Centerestablished in Silicon Valley.
    1996 Established in 1996, the Global Initiative builds on the School's legacy of global engagement by supporting the HBS community of faculty, students, and alumni in their work, encouraging a global perspective in research, study and practice.
    1991 Four students from Soviet republics are admitted to the MBA program. The students were to work for five months in an American firm as an introduction to a market economy, and were to take courses at Harvard University Summer School to become acquainted with the American university system before attending Harvard Business School. After completing the MBA program, the students were to return to the U.S.S.R. to complete a five-year to a Soviet State enterprise.
    1990 Professor Paul Lawrence and Research Fellow Charalambos Vlachoutsicos conduct a senior management seminar on the topic of U.S.-U.S.S.R. joint ventures in Moscow.
    1990 Vast growth in international representation is noted in the MBA program - a jump to 21 percent of the First-Year class, with over 58 countries represented in both MBA classes. This prompts the MBA Admissions office to assign members of its staff as "global managers". Assistant directors of Admissions become familiar with the customs, cultures and educational systems of a particular country or region, and act as HBS liaison with that region for MBA recruiting and admissions.
    1986 A research colloquium jointly organized by Professors George Lodge and Ezra Vogel (Harvard University Department of Sociology) brings together 50 corporate managers, government officials, and academics from around the world, to discuss Comparative Ideology in five developed countries-the US, Japan, the UK, France and the Federal Republic of Germany-and in four developing countries-Taiwan, South Korea, Mexico and Brazil.
    1985 Professors Thomas McCraw and M. Colyer Crum lead a colloquium comparing business-government relations in the United States with those in Japan. McCraw draws on research he has conducted while spending his summers in Japan teaching at the Nomura Research Institute's School for Advanced Management. He also presents a yearlong doctoral seminar in business history: "Development of the Modern Corporation in International Perspective."
    1983 Among the topics discussed at a series of HBS 75th Anniversary Research Colloquia are United States Competitiveness in the World Economy, presented by Bruce Scott and George Lodge; World Food Policy Issues, presented by Ray Goldberg and Peter Timmer; and Competition in Global Industries, presented by Michael Porter.
    1981 Prof. Louis Wells, Jr. is named the Herbert F. Johnson Professor of International Business. At the time of the appointment, Wells' responsibilities at the School include teaching a research seminar on international business in the doctoral program, serving as a special field coordinator for international business, sitting on the admissions committee and the policy committee, and chairing a subcommittee which was formed to make recommendations for changes in the requirements of the program, as well as sitting on the faculty council of the Harvard Institute for International Development (HIID).
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  • 1950 - 74
    1973 The International Teachers Program (ITP) moves to Fontainebleau, France, to be managed by a consortium of business schools that includes: CESA (Centre d'Enseignement Supérieur des Affaires in Jouy-en-Josas, France), CEI (Centre d'Etudes Industrielles, Geneva, Switzerland), IMEDE (Lausanne, Switzerland), INSEAD (Fontainebleau, France), London Business School (London, United Kingdom), Manchester Business School (Manchester, United Kingdom), and HBS (Boston, MA, United States).
    1971 The MBA catalogue lists 15 courses dealing with international business; international students comprise 16% of the MBA student body.
    1966 The Division of International Activities, with help from the USAID, establishes a program to provide MBA graduates with action-oriented jobs in developing countries. Seven members of the class of 1966 take specially created positions overseas which are "highly diversified, two-year non-career assignments".
    1964 George Baker writes that HBS wants to increase applications from women and minorities
    1964 The faculty accepts the Smith Committee report, which recognizes the desirability of foreign experience for faculty and limits formal HBS/foreign affiliations (involving up to eight faculty members) to three at any given time. No limit is set on leaves for faculty who are independently helping foreign schools.
    1963 At the request of President John F. Kennedy, and with the support of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the School participates in establishing INCAE (Instituto Centroamericano de Administración de Empresas), the Central American business school. Originally located in Antigua, Guatemala, INCAE relocates to Managua, Nicaragua. A faculty team, which includes Professors Henry Arthur, George Lodge, and Thomas Raymond, makes an initial visit to Central America and Panama to investigate possibilities, and Lodge ultimately helps establish the program.
    1962With Harvard's permission, HBS enters into formal agreement in July to help develop an "Institute of Management" in Ahmedabad, India; effort is supported by a Ford Foundation grant and headed by Harry Hansen.
    1961 C. Roland Christensen spends the year teaching at IMEDE (Lausanne, Switzerland).
    1960 An international section is added to the Intercollegiate Bibliography of Cases, the chief publication of the Intercollegiate Case Clearing House (ICH). Established in 1954, the ICH is a collaboration of the Executive Committee of the American Association of Collegiate Schools of Business, the Ford Foundation, and the staff of HBS, to centralize the rapidly growing library of business cases. By 1960, more than 235 HBS cases have been translated into one or more of nine foreign languages, and more than 360 cases have been received from foreign institutions all over the globe, many written by former HBS students and/or faculty.
    1958 The Instituto de Estudios Superiores de la Empresa (IESE) is established in Barcelona, Spain, and guided by an HBS team including Professor Ralph Hower. Affiliated with the University of Pamplona, IESE offers the first AMP-type program in Spain.
    1957 MBA students develop the International Business Club, a student-managed organization developed to stimulate interest in international business and affairs. The club runs a student career program that arranges summer positions for American students, as well as U.S. jobs for foreign students at HBS and at certain non-U.S. schools, between the first and second years.
    1956 Fifty teachers are sent to the United States - cosponsored by the European Productivity Agency (EPA) and the International Cooperation Administration (ICA) of the U.S. Department of State - to study business administration at five graduate schools (10 teachers per school): Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of California, University of Illinois, and University of Indiana.
    1955 The Office of International Relations is established at HBS to coordinate activities of faculty abroad and to ensure that foreigners' visits to HBS more meaningful.
    1954 The Ford Foundation awards a grant to help HBS found the Turkish Institute of Business Administration, to be taught by a predominantly Turkish faculty and examine Turkish business. Over the following 10 year period, 17 Turkish teachers receive special training at HBS, and 12 HBS faculty members are released for periods of months to years to assist the Turkish faculty. The program includes a year of instruction in the United States, followed by a year of research and casewriting on Turkish firms. After this preparation period, the Turkish Institute of Business Administration offers its first class of instruction.
    1952 Professor Charles Williams, as a consultant, advises co-sponsors Fiat and Olivetti on the opening of IPSOA (Istituto per lo Studio dell'Organizzazione Aziendale) in Turino, Italy, and begins teaching there. He is one of the first faculty members to engage in this kind of overseas assistance. There is no official connection with HBS, many of the IPSOA faculty are graduates of the HBS programs.
    1951 Harvard Business School joins with several other institutions to found the American Universities Field Staff (AUFS), a nonprofit organization that sends correspondents around the world to research and write reports on the political, economic, and social conditions of the country; give lectures to students at sponsor schools; interview students; and hold seminar lunches with interested faculty members.
    1950 The Economic Cooperation Administration (ECA), an agency of the U.S. government, sponsors groups of Europeans, under the auspices of the Marshall Plan to come to the United States and study U.S. productivity. The program includes a two-week session at the Harvard Business School.
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  • 1925 - 49
    1948 The "Management Training Course" at the University of Western Ontario, an executive program based on the Advanced Management Program, runs for its first 5-week session. HBS professors teach in the initial programs, but gradually turn over the teaching responsibility to the faculty of the University of Western Ontario School of Business Administration. Most of the participants are from Ontario, but other Canadians attend as well.
    1946 Harvey Bishop leaves his position as managing director of Royal Banking Powder Proprietary Ltd in Cape Town, South Africa, to direct the Harvard Business School Advanced Management Program (AMP), which he transforms from a "tentative wartime course geared to Army and Navy needs" into a "solid, all-industry management development course".
    1946 The number and quality of foreign MBA students increases, while international enrollment in the Advanced Management Program (AMP) skyrockets.
    1942 J. Anton de Haas, professor of International Relations, goes to Bogotá, Colombia, to assist in planning a college of business administration in that country. The future school will "prepare young South American men in American business methods, and serve as a center where American young men may study South American commerce."
    1940 The profile of the incoming MBA class notes representatives of seven regions: Alaska, Canada, China, Hawaii, India, Switzerland, and Venezuela.
    1934 The faculty approves three new courses: "International Commercial Relations" by Professor de Haas; "Economic and Business Analysis of Foreign Countries" by Prof de. Haas and "Management Problems of Export and Import Trade" by Professor Tosdal.
    1933 In its third year, the Harvard Business School Alumni inaugurates clubs in London, Paris and Shanghai.
    1930 Dean Wallace B. Donham and Professor Georges Doriot participate in the opening ceremonies in Paris for the first European Center for advanced training in business management, the CPA (Centre de Perfectionnement dans l'Administration des Affaires), which Doriot established.
    1930 In the seventh volume of the Harvard Business School Bulletin, Dean Wallace B. Donham reports on newly developed English and French business schools.
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  • 1900 - 24
    1920 The HBS faculty undertakes a complete resurvey of the curriculum and divides it into eight "study groups-"to permit specialization with direction"-among them is Foreign Trade.
    1910 One of the first HBS instructors, Selden O. Martin travels to Latin America to gather information to augment existing courses.
    1908 The first international MBA students - Ting-chi Chu of Shanghai and Charles Le Deuc of Paris - enroll.
    1908 The original MBA curriculum includes courses in French, German and Spanish correspondence, in anticipation that students will require foreign languages in their business and personal dealings.
    1908 Professor Cherington's course, Economic Resources of the United States, "[gives] consideration to foreign trade of the country and the relative position of the US in international trade," and Professor Sprague's course in "Banking" begins by examining the London banking system against New York, and moves on to look comparatively at France and Germany.
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South Asia

South Asia photo

Video: Harvard Business School at the Kumbh Mela

In this video report, Senior Lecturer John Macomber visits the Kumbh Mela in India, the world's largest religious pilgrimage, to discover what such an undertaking can teach us about real estate, urbanization, sustainability, and infrastructure.

Executive Education

Driving Growth Through Innovation — India
August 19-22, 2013 (Mumbai, India)
Innovating new products and services in India can be complicated by an unpredictable market and unfamiliar culture. This program helps business leaders develop and market differentiated products and services by identifying and leveraging new opportunities. Participants leave with the latest tools and strategies to manage today's diverse risks and to position their companies for future success.

Featured Research

Omidyar Network: Pioneering Impact Investment
Chu, Michael, and Lauren Barley
March 2013

Nalli Silk Sarees (B)
Narayanan, V.G., Namrata Arora, and Vidhya Muthuram
January 2013

Intuit Inc.: Project AgriNova
Eisenmann, Thomas R., and Tanya Bijlani
November 2012

I Paid a Bribe (Dot) Com
Ramanna, Karthik, and Rachna Tahilyani
August 2012

Business-driven Research at IBM Research India
Shih, Willy, Margaret Pierson, Pankaj Agarwal, Diego Medicina, and Juan Prajogo
August 2012

Sarvajal: Water for All
Macomber, John D., and Mona Sinha
June 2012

Piramal e-Swasthya: Attempting Big Changes for Small Places-in India and Beyond
Kanter, Rosabeth Moss, and Matthew Bird
June 2012

Asia-Pacific

Asia Pacific photo

Climbing the Great Wall of Trust

New research from Assistant Professor Roy Y.J. Chua investigates the difficulties for foreigners doing business in China, and what they can do to overcome the challenge.

Executive Education

Growing and Leading a Professional Service Firm — China
July 14-19 2013 (Harvard Center Shanghai)
To take advantage of opportunities in China, professional service firms must navigate many obstacles in a complex and unfamiliar environment. Offered jointly by the Harvard Business School and the School of Management, Fudan University in Shanghai, this program explores the difficult balancing act required for company leaders who must consistently maintain fiscal discipline while exceeding client expectations, motivating staff, and formulating and executing long-term strategy.

Featured Research

Austal, Ltd. (A)
Shih, Willy, Margaret Pierson, and Dawn Lau
April 2013

GREE, Inc.
Hagiu, Andrei, and Masahiro Kotosaka
February 2013

Creating the First Public Law Firm: The IPO of Slater & Gordon Limited
Esty, Benjamin C., and E. Scott Mayfield
December 2012

Olympus
Lorsch, Jay W., Suraj Srinivasan, and Kathleen Durante
November 2012

Quietly Brilliant: Transformational Change at HTC
Tushman, Michael L., and Kerry Herman
July 2012

The China Entrepreneurs Forum
Kirby, William C., G.A. Donovan, and Tracy Yuen Manty
May 2012

Chairman Zhang and Broad Group: Growth Dilemmas
Marquis, Christopher, Nancy Hua Dai, and Lynn Yin
March 2012

Africa / Middle East

Africa/Middle East photo

Mobile Banking for the Unbanked

In many developing countries it's common for a person to have a mobile phone but not a bank account. In fact, more than 1 billion people fit this description, and the number is only likely to increase. To that end, many companies are considering how to give residents access to banking services via their handsets.

Executive Education

Global Colloquium on Participant-Centered Learning (GLOCOLL)
July 21-27, 2013
The Global Colloquium on Participant-Centered Learning (GLOCOLL) is a two-session program that seeks to build a global community of faculty members who are committed to participant-centered learning through innovative teaching and course design. Developed by Harvard Business School (HBS) senior faculty members, the program aims to help management educators improve their effectiveness by learning from their teaching.

Featured Research

The Universalization of L'Oréal
Lal, Rajiv, and Carin-Isabel Knoop
January 2013

SCMS: Battling HIV/AIDS in Africa
Raman, Ananth, Noel Watson, Santiago Kraiselburd, and Emmanuel Akili
November 2012

Angola and the Resource Curse
Werker, Eric D. and Ian Cornell
November 2012

Negotiating the Path of Abraham
Sebenius, James K., and Kimberlyn Leary
July 2012

Peace, Non-Aligned: The Pragmatic Optimism of Lakhdar Brahimi
Sebenius, James K., and Laurence A. Green
June 2012

Abraaj Capital and the Karachi Electric Supply Company
Lerner, Josh, Asim Ijaz Khwaja, and Ann Leamon
March 2012

Europe

Europe Pacific photo

How Mercadona Fixes Retail's 'Last 10 Yards' Problem

Spanish supermarket chain Mercadona offers aggressive pricing, yet high-touch customer service and above-average employee wages. What's its secret? The operations between loading dock and the customer's hands, says HBS professor Zeynep Ton.

Executive Education

Innovating for Sustainability
May 26-29, 2013 (Hampshire, England)
Exploring the link between sustainability and financial performance, this program helps companies deliver value to both shareholders and society. You will discover how leading companies are developing innovative products, processes, and business models to achieve financial goals while meeting objectives-and government mandates-for environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance.

Featured Research

Porto Adriatico
Segel, Arthur I.
April 2013

Domaines Barons de Rothschild (Lafite): Plus ça change….
Goldberg, Ray A., Arthur I. Segel, Elie Ofek, and Carin-Isabel Knoop
February 2013

Angry Birds
Gupta, Sunil, and Dharmishta Rood
December 2012

Monocle
Soltes, Eugene, and Sara Hess
December 2012

Sir Alex Ferguson: Managing Manchester United
Elberse, Anita, and Thomas Dye
November 2012

Innovation Magic
Thomke, Stefan, and Jason Randal
July 2012

On Two Wheels in Paris: The Velib' Bicycle-Sharing Program
Coles, Peter A., Elena Corsi, and Vincent Dessain
May 2012

The Swatch Group
Deshpandé, Rohit, Karol Misztal, and Daniela Beyersdorfer
March 2012

Latin America

Latin America photo

What Do Development Banks Do? Evidence from Brazil, 2002-2009

While some authors view development banks as an important tool to alleviate capital constraints in scarce credit markets and unlock productive investments, others see those banks as conduits of cheap loans to politically-connected firms that could obtain capital elsewhere.

Executive Education

Global Colloquium on Participant-Centered Learning (GLOCOLL)
July 21-27, 2013
The Global Colloquium on Participant-Centered Learning (GLOCOLL) is a two-session program that seeks to build a global community of faculty members who are committed to participant-centered learning through innovative teaching and course design. Developed by Harvard Business School (HBS) senior faculty members, the program aims to help management educators improve their effectiveness by learning from their teaching.

Featured Research

Juan Valdez: Innovation in Caffeination
Norton, Michael I., and Jeremy Dann
March 2013

Brazil's Enigma: Sustaining Long-Term Growth
Alfaro, Laura, and Hilary White
January 2013

Mexico City Water Shortage
Macomber, John D., Regina Garcia-Cuellar, Griffin H. James, and Frederik Nellemann
September 2012

Start-Up Chile: April 2012
Applegate Lynda M., William R. Kerr, Josh Lerner, Dina D. Pomeranz, Gustavo A. Herrero, and Cintra Scott
August 2012

GlaxoSmithKline in Brazil: Public-Private Vaccine Partnerships
Daemmrich, Arthur A., and Ian McKown Cornell
August 2012

Heavy Metal (A): Baosteel Enters Brazil
Abrami, Regina M., and Iacob Koch-Weser
May 2012

A Note on Water
Amy C. Edmondson, George Serafeim, and Sarah E. Farrell
April 2012

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