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• Case | HBS Case Collection | May 2016 (Revised March 2019)

  Olivia Lum: Wanting to Save the World

  Geoffrey Jones and Essie Alamsyah

  This case considers the entrepreneurial career of Olivia Lum, who founded the Singaporean water company Hyflux in 1989. An orphan born in Malaysia, Lum provides a rare case of an entrepreneurial success in a country whose economic success has primarily rested on state-owned and foreign firms. The case describes the formidable challenges she initially faced, her subsequent breakthrough in China, and the subsequent growth as a global water treatment company employing membrane technology. In 2004 the company entered the large Middle Eastern market for water treatment but soon encountered problems, including political turbulence. The case ends with demonstrations and an emergent crisis in Libya in 2011, a country in which Hyflux had recently invested. The case offers opportunities to explore the nature of entrepreneurship in Southeast Asia, the business importance of relationships between overseas Chinese and mainland China, and the challenges faced by female entrepreneurs. More broadly, it serves as vehicle for teaching students about the global water crisis and the role of business in helping to resolve it.

  Keywords: industrial organization; Chinitz; agglomeration; clusters; cities; mine; environmental management; operations management; Sustainable Operations; environmental regulation; Entrepreneurship; Globalization; History; Operations; Management; Environmental Sustainability; Green Technology Industry; Utilities Industry; China; Singapore;

  Citation:

  Jones, Geoffrey, and Essie Alamsyah. "Olivia Lum: Wanting to Save the World." Harvard Business School Case 316-178, May 2016. (Revised March 2019.)  View Details

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• Case | HBS Case Collection | August 2012 (Revised March 2019)

  Elia Nuqul and the Making of a Middle Eastern Business Group (A)

  Geoffrey Jones and Lana Ghanem

  The case is concerned with Elia Nuqul, the founder of Jordanian-based Nuqul Brothers, a large diversified business group. It shows how Nuqul, a Christian Palestinian whose family was forced to flee to Jordan after the creation of Israel in 1948, built a business in his new home, first in trading and later in consumer products such as hygienic paper manufacturing. The case shows the challenges of building such an entrepreneurial business in a developing region with high political instability. The case is positioned within the wider context of the regional conflict in Palestine and Israel, and it provides a vehicle for exploring the role and responsibility of entrepreneurs, if any, in such conflicts.

  Keywords: Business History; Entrepreneurship; Globalization; History; Government and Politics; Consumer Products Industry; Middle East;

  Citation:

  Jones, Geoffrey, and Lana Ghanem. "Elia Nuqul and the Making of a Middle Eastern Business Group (A)." Harvard Business School Case 813-052, August 2012. (Revised March 2019.)  View Details

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• Chapter | The Oxford Handbook of Management in Emerging Markets | 2019

  International Business and Emerging Markets in Historical Perspective

  G. Jones

  This chapter examines international business in emerging markets over the long run. It shows how the strategies of Western multinationals evolved over time. In the first era of globalization in the 19th century, Western firms sought access to resources, and they faced little political risk due to Western imperialism. The main risks were logistical due to infrastructure and technological inadequacies. During the Great Reversal between 1929 and 1979, the main challenges faced by Western multinationals were political, as they faced widespread host government hostility and expropriation. In the contemporary global economy, political risk partially declined with the spread of liberalization, although the management of relations with host governments remained a challenge, notably in China. The growth of local competitors and a resurgence in local consumer sensitivities obliged multinationals to incorporate local relevance into global brands.

  Keywords: Emerging Markets; Business History; Multinational Firms and Management; Globalization;

  Citation:

  Jones, G. "International Business and Emerging Markets in Historical Perspective." Chap. 3 in The Oxford Handbook of Management in Emerging Markets, edited by Robert Grosse and Klaus E. Meyer, 55–76. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2019.  View Details

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