HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL PROFESSOR CO-AUTHORS NEW BOOK ON HOW BUSINESS CAN REDUCE GLOBAL POVERTY
George Lodge Suggests Creating World Development Corporation
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| Professor Emeritus George C. Lodge Photo: Richard Chase |
BOSTON - Although world leaders have given the reduction of global poverty top priority, it still persists – and has even worsened in many countries with governments that lack either the desire or the ability to act. In their new book, A Corporate Solution to Global Poverty: How Multinationals Can Help the Poor and Invigorate Their Own Legitimacy (Princeton University Press),Harvard Business School Professor George Lodge and Craig Wilson, an economist with the International Finance Corporation, suggest that the solution to global poverty lies in the creation of a new institution called the World Development Corporation (WDC) – a partnership of multinational corporations (MNCs), international development agencies, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs).
A Corporate Solution to Global Poverty asserts that MNCs have the critical combination of capabilities required to build investment, grow economies, and create jobs in poor countries – thus reducing poverty. Furthermore, they argue, MNCs can do so profitably and thus sustainably. However, since Lodge and Wilson also believe that a collective approach is better than one in which an individual company proceeds alone, they suggest that a United Nations-sponsored WDC, owned and managed by a dozen or so MNCs with NGO support, would make a marked difference. Corporate support for the World Development Corporation, they argue, would benefit not only the world’s poor but also company shareholders as a result of improved MNC legitimacy and stronger markets and profitability.
According to Frannie Léautier, vice president of the World Bank Institute, “George Lodge and Craig Wilson offer a fascinating review of the fast changing role of big business and its relations with the international community and civil society. The authors comprehensively outline the increasingly complex relationships that multinationals must manage in the face of increased demands to do more that just make profit.”
A Corporate Solution to Global Poverty is available for purchase online:
http://www.pupress.princeton.edu/titles/8138.html.
About the Authors
George Lodge is the Jaime and Josefina Chua Tiampo Professor of Business Administration Emeritus at Harvard Business School. He joined the School as a full-time faculty member in 1963 and played a leading role in the design and development of several courses relating to the global, political, and economic environment of business, comparative business-government relations, and comparative ideology. In 1958, President Dwight D. Eisenhower named him assistant Secretary of Labor for International Affairs, a position to which President John F. Kennedy reappointed him several years later. His books include Managing Globalization in the Age of Interdependence, The New American Ideology, and The American Disease.
After spending nine years in the Australian Foreign Service, Craig Wilson worked for five years as a consultant economist with the World Bank and other NGOs. In 2005, he joined the International Finance Corporation and is currently based in Bangladesh, where he is managing a program aimed at improving the investment environment is South Asia.
About Harvard Business School
Founded in 1908 as part of Harvard University, Harvard Business School, (www.hbs.edu), is located in Boston and offers full-time programs leading to the MBA and doctoral degrees, as well as more than 40 Executive Education programs. With a faculty of more than 200 distinguished scholars, the School is dedicated to educating leaders who make a difference in the world. Its core focus is to shape the practice of business, build enduring knowledge, and effectively communicate important ideas. Harvard Business School is the world’s largest producer of business cases, a method of teaching pioneered by the School in the 1920s.