In The News

Global “Chop Shops”: Slice, Dice and Outsource

Farok J. Contractor October 27, 2010
Manufacturing and IT firms slice their work into parts, much like the chop shops that collect old cars, breaking them down into parts for resale and higher profits. Mangers divide tasks, sending work to points of the globe where costs and skills are most efficient for each task at hand. Farok J. Contractor, professor of management and global business, analyzes trends underway in the once-...

Law and Globalization: Not Entirely Free, Your Honor

August 17, 2010
As barriers to international trade crumble, the legal profession does not hurry to follow the trend. One explanation of the profession’s relative imperviousness to foreign influence is separate legal traditions: Some countries practice English common law while others follow civil law or a mix of systems. Complex regulations on practice vary by nation, sometimes devised “to protect the profession...

Global Brands Contend With Appreciation for the Local

Bryant Simon July 6, 2010
Fear of global brands is a powerful, universally recognized phenomenon. Just as powerful and less noticed is the consumer pushback against global brands and search for unique, local products, notes Bryant Simon, author and American Studies professor. “The spread of these branded symbols of globalization raises the value of the local,” he maintains, explaining how Starbucks deliberately set out...

As Growth in US Slows, Wal-Mart Puts More Emphasis on Foreign Stores

Ylan Q. Mui June 10, 2010
Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, pursues ambitious foreign expansion to make up for lagging sales in the United States. While no single country could replace the US in terms of consumer power, developing nations are poised for economic growth. Wal-Mart caters to newly-empowered consumers in emerging economies, a business model much like the firm’s “early strategy of building stores in a...

Entrepreneurs Wary of China Currency

Emily Maltby May 26, 2010
Any regulatory change creates winners and losers. Because of the strong trade relationship between China and the US, consumers and businesses in either country must adjust to changes from either government – and that includes the possibility of currency revaluation. Companies that export to China will benefit from revaluation, but the many small US businesses that depend on China for consistent...

Marketing to Brazil's Emerging Middle Class

Seth Kugel March 31, 2010
The purchasing power of lower- and middle-class Brazilians is expanding rapidly, creating new opportunities and markets for global companies. Pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline, for instance, has repackaged a denture adhesive and is trying to sell it in slum communities in Rio de Janeiro. But the transition to the new market is not easy. For one thing, no one in these communities knows what a...

Silicon Sweatshops: An illness in Suzhou

Kathleen E. McLaughlin March 19, 2010
A large number of workers at a plant in China that makes components for Apple products have become sick from handling a chemical used to clean the glass screens for products like the iPod and iPhone. The company doesn't have the necessary permits to use the chemical, n-hexane, but continues to do so to shave a few seconds off its production time. Apple, meanwhile, refuses to answer questions...