International business

The widely held notion of “Japan, Inc.” is exaggerated; there is no monolithic business-government link. Even so, the cooperation (without incorporation) between the large corporate combines and the government bureaucracy is impressive in its strength and focus on the common economic good—especially in view of its achievements worldwide. As the economic power of the United […]

An analysis of 400 case studies uncovers several ways to solve the world’s infrastructure challenges more efficiently.

We’ve been sharing thoughts in this blog about how the rapid growth of the emerging economies, along with other modern realities, will reshape the practice — and thus rewrite the rules — of capitalism. Many readers are aware that these are ideas in development for our forthcoming book on the topic. This week we decided […]

The flight from Vancouver to Tokyo was half empty. At this time of year it is generally packed, and I wondered again how wise I was in heading to Tokyo just after a major earthquake, and with the Fukushima reactors running out of control. But I had compelling personal reasons to go, and the US […]

And PayPal, Square, and other services don’t go far enough.

The world is watching how China handles company defaults.

Recently I delivered a talk a the Council on Foreign Relations titled “Managing the New Trajectory of Global Innovation” explaining why and how multinationals must revamp their Western-centric innovation strategy in order to effectively leverage global ideas, talent, and markets. In our increasingly multi-polar world characterized by the inexorable rise of emerging markets like Brazil, […]

The U.S. government will spend more than $25 billion on health-care-related IT as part of the health care reform bill passed by Congress in March of 2010....

Business has become one of the primary players in structuring the global economy and, by extension, global governance. This places new demands on business...

The world is your talent pool. We’ve been hearing that message ever since corporations started chattering about globalization. The real issue is, how well do you fish in that pool? The difference between strategically fishing and merely flailing the waters of an increasingly diverse talent pool was the top issue at the recent Hidden Brain […]

We recently attended the launch of Xerox’s Innovation Hub in Chennai (a major South Indian city), their first such venture outside the developed world. The initial mission of the Xerox India Innovation Hub is to develop document management solutions that are relevant to emerging market countries and, at the same time, that help innovate solutions […]

Angola is offering financial aid to debt-ridden Portugal. The Economist recently declared Africa a "hopeful continent" after years of writing it off as...

Five tips for positioning yourself in international markets.

In fast-growing markets, women are getting ahead faster, too.

I was a panelist on a session on Reverse Innovation during the recently concluded World Economic Forum at Davos. The session attracted over 125 CEOs and...

Solvency and sovereignty should remain separate issues.

It was September 3, 1974. I walked into Aldrich Hall, extraordinarily excited to be a student in the MBA program at the Harvard Business School. There were four Indians out of a class of 900. If someone had told me then that an Indian would one day become the dean of HBS, my reaction would […]

The country invests more in R&D than anyone, but it needs manufacturing, too.

Answers from Hank Paulson, former U.S. Treasury secretary, and other corporate and government leaders.

Entrepreneurship seems to have become the silver bullet for a job-scarce, unemployment-saddled global economy still struggling to shake off recession. Around the world, leaders talk about how start-ups can create new jobs and lift regions out of poverty. But many entrepreneurs — particularly those in the world’s toughest economies — are still battling to secure […]