Globalization

Globalization is a featured research topic and an initiative at Harvard Business School.
 
The globalization of business has long encouraged Harvard Business School (HBS) faculty to research international business practices and the effects of globalization. Seminal contributions - Christopher Bartlett on managing across borders, Michael Porter on competition in global industries, and Louis Wells on foreign investment in emerging markets - helped pave today’s global research path. Supported by eight Global Research Centers that facilitate our contact with global companies and the collection of international data, key investigations concentrate on the effectiveness of management practices in global organizations; cross-cultural learning and adaptation processes; the challenges of taking companies global; emerging-market companies with global potential; and international political economy and its impact on economic development.

Featured Works

 

  1. Article | Economic Journal (Royal Economic Society) | July 2018

    Global Collaborative Patents

    Sari Pekkala Kerr and William R. Kerr

    We study the prevalence and traits of global collaborative patents for U.S. public companies, where the inventor team is located both within and outside of the United States. Collaborative patents are frequently observed when a corporation is entering into a new foreign region for innovative work, especially in settings where intellectual property protection is weak. We also connect collaborative patents to the ethnic composition of the firm’s U.S. inventors and cross-border mobility of inventors within the firm. The inventor team composition has important consequences for how the new knowledge is exploited within and outside of the firm.

    Keywords: patents; innovation; Research and Development; Ethnic Networks; migration; diasporas; foreign direct investment; Technology Transfer; globalization; mobility; Technology; Globalized Firms and Management; Diasporas; Patents; Ethnicity; Entrepreneurship; Research and Development; Foreign Direct Investment; Innovation and Invention; United States;

    Citation:

    Kerr, Sari Pekkala, and William R. Kerr. "Global Collaborative Patents." Economic Journal (Royal Economic Society) 128, no. 612 (July 2018): F235–F272.  View Details
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  2. Case | HBS Case Collection | June 2018

    Forta Furniture: International Expansion

    John A. Quelch and Karthik Easwar

    The Forta Furniture case highlights the need to consider new market expansion to grow a firm. It demonstrates that simply doing what has always been done is not sustainable when other competitors enter the market with differentiated or potentially superior offerings. In addition, the case suggests there are many routes to global expansion; a firm could look to build a brand in these new markets or compete as a private label. Further, the case addresses the need to combine quantitative and qualitative analyses for making superior decisions. Additionally, this case touches on the need to understand differences in resources and customer preferences in different countries and how a company should consider these factors when defining its growth strategy in deciding whether, where, and how to expand internationally. This case can be used in an introductory marketing management course for undergraduates or MBA students that discusses new market expansion and/or global or multi-market marketing strategy. In addition, it could be used in an elective course on international marketing. The case could also be used as an example of sales forecasting when a firm launches in a new market.

    Keywords: Market Entry and Exit; Global Range; Decision Making; Analysis; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Growth and Development Strategy; Brands and Branding; Expansion;

    Citation:

    Quelch, John A., and Karthik Easwar. "Forta Furniture: International Expansion." Harvard Business School Brief Case 918-547, June 2018.  View Details
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  3. Case | HBS Case Collection | June 2018

    Global Brand Management of Anheuser Busch InBev's Budweiser

    Jill Avery

    Brian Perkins, chief architect of the $6 billion Budweiser brand, was excited about 2018, in which the company would launch Budweiser into several new markets in Africa and Latin America. He was also feeling the pressure to finalize a global brand strategy that would define Budweiser’s value proposition and guide its development and execution around the world. The problem was that Budweiser actually had two distinct brand realities that differed across geographies and that often interfered with each other. He worried whether the company could keep selling a premium brand proposition abroad as the brand's reputation faced challenges at home in the U.S. and whether he needed to force a monolithic global brand strategy everywhere or allow for local market customization. Could Budweiser simultaneously accommodate two or more brand realities?

    Keywords: marketing; brands and branding; brand management; global brands; brand positioning; marketing strategy; advertising; brand extension; Marketing; Marketing Strategy; Brands and Branding; Advertising; Global Strategy; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Consumer Products Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Advertising Industry; Africa; China; United States; North America; South Africa; Nigeria; Kenya; Cameroon; Canada;

    Citation:

    Avery, Jill. "Global Brand Management of Anheuser Busch InBev's Budweiser." Harvard Business School Case 518-105, June 2018.  View Details
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  4. Article | MIT Sloan Management Review | Summer 2018

    Why High-Tech Commoditization Is Accelerating

    Willy C. Shih

    Knowledge embedded within state-of-the-art production and design tools is a powerful force that is leveling the global technology playing field. It democratizes innovation and makes future competition more challenging. This paper describes the knowledge flows through production and design tools, and it suggests that the increasing level of abstraction is enabling new players to innovate without understanding how the technology building blocks they are using actually work inside. This suggests that there are new rules of competition, where firms should move beyond commoditized parts and focus their differentiation strategies.

    Keywords: Product design; product commercialization; product development; product development strategy; production; manufacturing tools; manufacturing; manufacturing industry; Engineering; Globalization; Goods and Commodities; Knowledge; Commercialization; Business Strategy; Corporate Strategy; Hardware; Technology Adoption; Consumer Products Industry; Auto Industry; Semiconductor Industry; Electronics Industry; Industrial Products Industry; Information Technology Industry; North America; Asia;

    Citation:

    Shih, Willy C. "Why High-Tech Commoditization Is Accelerating." Art. 59420. MIT Sloan Management Review 59, no. 4 (Summer 2018): 53–58.  View Details
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  5. Article | American Economic Journal: Economic Policy | May 2018

    Selection and Market Reallocation: Productivity Gains from Multinational Production

    Laura Alfaro and Maggie X. Chen

    Assessing the productivity gains from multinational production has been a vital topic of economic research and policy debate. Positive aggregate productivity gains are often attributed to within-firm productivity improvement; however, an alternative, less emphasized explanation is between-firm selection and market reallocation, whereby competition from multinationals leads to factor reallocation and the survival of only the most productive domestic firms. We investigate the roles of the two different mechanisms in determining the aggregate productivity gains by exploring their distinct predictions on the distributions of domestic firms: within-firm productivity improvement shifts the productivity and revenue distributions rightward while between-firm selection and market reallocation raise the left truncation of the distributions and shift revenue leftward. Using a rich cross-country firm-level panel dataset, we find significant evidence of both mechanisms, but between-firm selection and market reallocation accounts for the majority of aggregate productivity gains, suggesting that ignoring this channel could lead to substantial bias in understanding the nature of gains from multinational production.

    Keywords: Productivity gains; multinational production; selection; Market Reallocation; and within-firm productivity; Multinational Firms and Management; Production; Performance Productivity; Competition; Mathematical Methods;

    Citation:

    Alfaro, Laura, and Maggie X. Chen. "Selection and Market Reallocation: Productivity Gains from Multinational Production." American Economic Journal: Economic Policy 10, no. 2 (May 2018): 1–38. (Also NBER Working Paper w18207. See Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 12–111, 2015 for longer version.)  View Details
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  6. Case | HBS Case Collection | April 2018

    Globalizing Japan's Dream Machine: Recruit Holdings Co., Ltd.

    Sandra J. Sucher and Shalene Gupta

    Recruit Holdings, an advertising media, staffing, and business support conglomerate was founded in 1960 by Hiromasa Ezoe. Recruit was built on the principle that the company should add value to society. To do this, it hired young and talented employees and created a culture of self-efficacy. In the late 1980s, Recruit hit rough waters. First, Ezoe sold 2.8 million shares in a Recruit subsidiary before it went public to 76 Japanese leaders in politics, business, and media. The "Recruit Scandal," as it was called, resulted in the resignation of Prime Minister Noburu Takeshita and his entire cabinet. A few years later, Recruit was mired in debt with interest payments of 65 billion yen when its annual income was only 62 billion yen. In the early ‘90s, the development of the Internet cut into Recruit’s core businesses, which were paper-based advertising. Yet by 2017, Recruit was a global conglomerate with $16 billion in sales. This case examines Recruit’s unique corporate culture that helped it survive a scandal so large it became a staple in Japanese textbooks, as well as Recruit’s subsequent globalization.

    Keywords: Business Conglomerates; Mission and Purpose; Organizational Culture; Crime and Corruption; Transition; Globalization; Japan;

    Citation:

    Sucher, Sandra J., and Shalene Gupta. "Globalizing Japan's Dream Machine: Recruit Holdings Co., Ltd." Harvard Business School Case 318-130, April 2018.  View Details
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  7. Other Unpublished Work | 2018

    Trump's Populism: What Business Leaders Need To Understand

    Rafael Di Tella

    In the 2016 United States presidential election, candidates from both major political parties used anti-establishment messaging to appeal to Americans, a theme that had been on the sidelines of US political discourse for decades. Donald Trump, in particular, played into the rising anti-establishment sentiment, embracing a populist platform and emphasizing his position as a Washington outsider. Why did his message resonate with voters? Rafael Di Tella discusses how many Americans felt betrayed by the educated “elite” view on globalization, and looked to Trump as a president who would put American workers and values first.

    Keywords: globalization; Government and Politics; social issues; populism; Globalization; Public Opinion; Social Issues; Government and Politics; Demographics; United States;

    Citation:

    Di Tella, Rafael. "Trump's Populism: What Business Leaders Need To Understand." HBS Working Knowledge, March 2018.  View Details
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  8. Article | Keiei ronshū [Meiji Business Review] | March 2018

    Global Business over Time

    G. Jones

    This article explores how business enterprises have been powerful actors in the spread of global capitalism between 1840 and the present day. It also shows how global firms, emerging out of industrialized Western economies, created and co-created markets and ecosystems through their ability to transfer a package of financial, organizational, and cultural assets, skills, and ideologies across national borders. It argues such firms have been shapers of, as well as responders to, globalization waves over the last two centuries. Global firms are also shown to be actors in periodic deglobalization waves. This was because their function was to reinforce the gaps in wealth and income rather than disrupt them. Business enterprises proved disappointing institutions for knowledge and technology transfer. During the first global economy, multinational resource and related investments were highly enclavist and embedded in the institutional arrangements of Western imperialism and autocratic dictators. Western firms reinforced rather than disrupted institutional and societal norms, which restricted growth in many countries outside the West. They often functioned, as a result, as part of the problem, rather than part of the solution. In the more recent globalization era, the strategies of Western corporations have moved beyond the practices of the colonial past, but linkages and spillovers to local economies have often been disappointedly low. Their ability, and motivation, to locate value-added activities in the most attractive locations means that they strengthen clustering rather than encourage dispersion of knowledge.

    Keywords: global; multinational; business history; Globalization; Business History; Globalized Firms and Management; Globalized Markets and Industries; Economic Systems;

    Citation:

    Jones, G. "Global Business over Time." Keiei ronshū [Meiji Business Review] 65, no. 1 (March 2018): 1–26.  View Details
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  9. Chapter | Business Groups in the West: Origins, Evolution, and Resilience | 2018

    Britain: Global Legacy and Domestic Persistence

    G. Jones

    This chapter explores the British experience in a volume which examines the historical evolution of business groups in developed Western economies. The chapter argues that during the nineteenth century British merchant houses established business groups with diversified portfolio and pyramidal structures overseas, especially in developing economies, including both British colonies and the independent nations of Latin America. While these types of business groups remained a significant form of firm organization among enterprises specializing in overseas ventures, they did not become the dominant form of large enterprises within British economy itself. Business groups organized under the holding company such as Calico Printers' Association and Associated Portland Cement, as their names imply, were eventually a federation of many specialized companies. As they seldom committed to administrative centralization, their efficiency gain as a business organization remained marginal. The chapter first looks at the appearance and development of industry-focused and family-owned companies before World War II and the relative decline in importance of internationally-focused business groups during the second half of the twentieth century. The chapter then discusses the rise and fall of diversified and conglomerate type of groups like Hanson Trust and BTR, and the more durable Virgin Group and its counterparts. The empirical evidence presented in the chapter demonstrates that diversified business groups can add value in mature markets such as Britain. Even the much-criticized conglomerates of the 1970s-1990s were quite successful forms of business enterprise, and the demise of many of them appears to owe more to management fads than to serious underperformance.

    Keywords: business groups; business history; conglomerates; Globalization; Entrepreneurship; Business History; Organizations; Business Conglomerates; United Kingdom;

    Citation:

    Jones, G. "Britain: Global Legacy and Domestic Persistence." Chap. 5 in Business Groups in the West: Origins, Evolution, and Resilience, edited by Asli M. Colpan and Takashi Hikino, 123–146. New York: Oxford University Press, 2018.  View Details
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  10. Case | HBS Case Collection | February 2018 (Revised June 2018)

    Uruguay: Facing the 21st Century

    Sophus A. Reinert, Michael Chu and Carin-Isabel Knoop

    In the fall of 2017, self-made business leader Edgardo Novick pondered his campaign to be elected President of Uruguay, “the Switzerland of Latin America.” Inspired by populist revolts against the status quo observable worldwide, Novick hoped he could ride popular momentum to break the political monopoly of the traditional parties and return the country to its past greatness. Uruguay had been one of the world’s most successful countries in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries but had since experienced a long period of relative decline. Could Novick’s campaign turn the tide of history? And what policy should Uruguay adopt with regard to the world economy?

    Keywords: uruguay; Edgardo Novick; Business Cycles; Macroeconomics; Geographic Location; Government and Politics; Wealth and Poverty; Economic Slowdown and Stagnation; Globalization; Pulp and Paper Industry; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Uruguay;

    Citation:

    Reinert, Sophus A., Michael Chu, and Carin-Isabel Knoop. "Uruguay: Facing the 21st Century." Harvard Business School Case 318-019, February 2018. (Revised June 2018.)  View Details
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    11.  
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Initiatives & Projects

  • Global

    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.

Faculty

HBS Working Knowledge

Pic
re Willy C. Shih
The world's economies are interconnected by globalization, which makes threats of tariff wars doubly dangerous, says Willy Shih.
Pic
re Charles C.Y. Wang
Over the last 20 years, shortcomings of classical asset-pricing models have motivated research in developing alternative methods for measuring ex ante expected stock returns. This study evaluates the
Pic
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.

More »

Harvard Business Publishing

Article
by Paul M. Healy and Karthik Ramanna
Case
by John A. Quelch and Karthik Easwar

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