At the center of one of the largest corruption scandals in Latin America, Brazilian conglomerate Odebrecht signed a leniency agreement with American, Swiss and Brazilian prosecutors in 2016 admitting to paying bribes in 12 countries. In an effort to regain financial...

Private companies were being turned to for potable water in the world’s megacities due to impacts of climate change including droughts and flooding. Mexico City had endured several water-related crises, with its population suffering from floods, droughts, water...

In mid-2019, Carlos Hank, was deliberating over the results for Banorte Móvil – the mobile application for Banorte, Mexico’s most profitable and second-largest financial institution. Hank, who had been appointed as Banorte´s Chairman of the Board in January 2015, had...

Brothers André and Daniel Albuquerque founded the company Terra Nova in 2001 to mediate land disputes between poor families illegally living in urban areas and the official landowners—with the aspiration to improve the lives of the poor. A business-led approach to the...

Brazilian logistics company Rumo operated 13,500 km in railway networks, port terminals, and inland transshipment terminals, connecting major Brazilian ports to the agriculture hubs of Mato Grosso and São Paulo state. Controlled by Cosan, Brazil's leading sugar and...

The case concerns the sale of Mae Terra, one of Brazil's leading brands for packaged organic foods, to the consumer goods giant Unilever in 2017. Working with Unilever management, Mae Terra’s CEO Alexandre Borges must determine whether and how to keep Mae Terra's B...

Unilever is making strides to integrate the operations of Mae Terra—one of Brazil's leading brands for packaged organic foods—into its own structures, after acquiring the company in 2017. Mae Terra’s CEO, Alexandre Borges, must decide whether to implement his original...

Grupo Éxito, a leading South American retailer, faced declining market shares in Colombia in 2019 with the arrival of low-cost competitors and emerging digital trends. Originally founded in Medellín, Éxito had over the course of its seventy-year history evolved from a...

This article engages in a methodological experiment by using historical evidence to challenge a common misperception about internalization theory. The theory has often been criticized for maintaining that it assumes a hierarchically organized MNE based on knowledge...

Brazilian Michelin-star chef Alex Atala managed four restaurants, a foundation advocating for the environment, and a seminar focused on food and sustainability. His new initiative was opening a hotel.

This chapter explores how business enterprises have been powerful actors in the spread of global capitalism between 1840 and the present day. Emerging out of the industrialized Western economies, global firms created and co-created markets and ecosystems through their...

This chapter provides a new lens to the extensive debate among economists and economic historians concerning why the West grew rich and the rest of the world lagged behind as modern industrialization took hold in the 19th century. The literature has focused heavily on...

After long dominating Mexican microfinance, Compartamos Banco faces the emergence of fintech, just as for the first time its loan portfolio and clients have declined. Enrique Majós, CEO of GENTERA, the bank´s parent company, is keenly aware of the profound changes...

Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador became president of Mexico on December 1, 2018. His election, and the victory of his new Party, MORENA, represent a sharp shift to the left by Mexico’s political system. Previously, President Pena Nieto and his party, the PRI, had initiated...

As a result of Mexico´s pension industry deregulation, pension funds were able to invest in energy and infrastructure projects through a variety of financial instruments, particularly through Capital Development Certificates (CKDs), an asset class that served as a...

Covering a time frame that ranges from 8000 BC to the present, and drawing upon both Marxist and feminist theories, the book argues that nearly all the decisions we make in our most intimate lives—whom to marry, how to have children, how to have sex, how to think about...

This article highlights the benefits that rigorous use of oral history can offer to research on the contemporary business history of emerging markets. Oral history can help fill some of the major information voids arising from the absence of a strong tradition of...

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...

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...