This article contributes to the literature on political risk in business and economic history by examining both new perspectives (risk encountered by companies domestically, rather than risk for foreign investors) and new settings (emerging markets economies in Latin America and South Asia). It makes use of the Creating Emerging Markets oral history database at the Harvard Business School to examine business leaders’ perceptions of political risk over time between the 1970s and the present day, employing NVivo coding of the dataset to move beyond simple descriptive use of the content. The article identifies five major sources of risk operating in both geographies. Macroeconomic and policy turbulence emerged as the biggest source of risk for Latin Americans, while excessive bureaucracy was the biggest source of risk for South Asians. Political instability, corruption and violence were other sources of risk encountered by many firms. The article examines not only the types of risk found in different environments, but also how interviewees discussed and responded to risk. In the case of corruption, although most countries surveyed had similarly high levels of corruption, it manifested itself differently in different regions. Especially informative was the issue of bureaucratic risk. Although interviewees in both regions reported having to dedicate significant time to navigating government regulation, interviewees in South Asia frequently reported attempting to stay away from highly regulated industries, while many interviewees in Latin America discussed how they adapted to heavier government oversight by forming closer ties or working relationships with incumbent administrations. This article demonstrates how oral history testimony can deepen and nuance current understandings of the evolution of business in emerging markets over the last half century. It can shed light on sensitive topics that are hard to study using written sources alone, and adds nuance to phenomena commonly surveyed or measured qualitatively.
Published at a time of ever-increasing warnings that the pace of climate change and other environmental changes risk making the Earth unsustainable within our own lifetimes, this book looks at the past of green business to identify lessons for the future. It provides rich new evidence and insights on green business as it examines its variation between industries and nations over time. It shows the deep historical origins of endeavors to create for-profit businesses that were more responsible and sustainable as well as how these strategies have faced constraints, trade-offs, and challenges of legitimacy. The industries covered range from sustainable finance and solar energy to organic food and wine, ecotourism, and outdoor clothing. Strategies pursued range from incremental shifts towards sustainability to abandoning for-profit business entirely and re-wilding and conserving millions of acres of lands in Latin America. The book's distinctiveness lies in the use of original empirical data and the willingness to engage with both successful and unsuccessful cases. The wide geographical coverage includes not only the United States and Europe but also less studied settings, including Chile, Costa Rica, New Zealand, and Japan. The book serves as a warning against facile beliefs in the potential of win/win solutions as business tries to reduce its environmental impact or even save the planet. The lesson of history is that making business sustainable is a hard journey, littered with system-wide roadblocks, but it is a journey that is possible and one that is urgently needed.
In 2016 unforeseen Oil and Gas industry-wide demand slump drove ProdEng’s average service rates down by more than 37%, with EBITDA margins falling from 50% to 24% in the second half of 2016. Although the Partners remained optimistic about ProdEng’s long-term fundamentals and management team, the short-term challenges required that they act rapidly. However, they had divergent views on the path forward. Should they stay the course and focus on their core competencies or should they rethinking their approach to sales and driving profitability via spot contracts in a highly uncertain time?
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Maria Fernanda Miguel joined Harvard Business School in 2013 as Director for the Latin America Research Center (LARC). Her responsibilities include leading research activities for Spanish speaking countries in LATAM, and providing programmatic support to different areas of HBS including admissions, executive education, and immersion programs. Fernanda is based in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Prior to join Harvard Business School, Fernanda was a Senior Director and Leader for LATAM Business Development at Merck and senior consultant at McKinsey & Co., serving as global Practice Manager for the Business Technology Office Health Care Practice.
Fernanda holds a degree in economics from the Argentine Catholic University, an MBA from Harvard Business School, and a Master of Research from University of Bath.
Fernanda has been very active in non-profit activities, including fund rising at the Fundación Acción Hemato-oncologica – Argentine National Academy of Medicine, and acting as advisor to the Board of Directors of the Hospital Garrahan.
Priscilla Zogbi is the Director of the Latin American Research Center in São Paulo. Priscilla focuses on the School’s work in Brazil, developing research opportunities for faculty and relationships for other educational efforts such as the MBA curricular innovation and immersion programs.
Priscilla has over 17 years’ experience in marketing and product development. Before joining HBS she was a consultant to private equity and venture capital firms interested in the region. Prior to that she was a Global and a Regional Marketing Director at Avon Products, and has held managerial positions in the US and Brazil with Bath & Body Works, General Mills, Johnson & Johnson and Reckitt Benckiser.