Wal-Mart executives eventually realized that requiring employees to smile at customers or participate in the “morning Wal-Mart chant” at its German stores did not mesh well with either the staid employees or customers. Differences in corporate and national culture, combined with competition from...
Click here for the original article on The New York Times website.
Sanctions and counter-sanctions in response to Russian intervention in Ukraine will disrupt global trade. Russia is the world’s eighth largest economy. Industries will find stunted growth and respond with new patterns as retail outlets in Russia cope with empty shelves, European airlines mull...
Globalisation’s death has been announced many times. From the wrecked WTO summit in Seattle in 1999 to the global financial crisis in 2007, when the world trade seized up, the implacable march of globalisation has indeed slowed. But it has bounced...
An understanding of demographic trends can assist governments in targeting policies for the future and saving money for education, retirement, taxes, healthcare, distribution of natural resources, and more. More importantly, targeted policies can ease resentment emerging over demographic imbalances...
Demographic certainty: Population is in decline in developed countries (top); the number of elderly is on the rise in China
NEW YORK: While governments and institutions try to grapple with economic uncertainty and volatility an important factor of...
The Arab Spring protests have put emerging powers on the spot. French scholar Christophe Jaffrelot explores whether fledgling democracies have an obligation to aid the citizens of repressive states in securing democratic freedoms – why India, Brazil and South Africa resisted a UN Security Council...
Democratic opportunism? The BRICS members attend a conference in China (top). India, Brazil and South Africa choose silence over Syrian oppression while Russia and China veto UN censure. Syrian protests in Hama (below)
NEW YORK: The Arab yearning...
Some analysts suggest that China and India are on a path to perpetual cooperation. Both are populous Asian nations experiencing high rates of economic growth with more exposure to international market forces. However, diverging political and economic ambitions could drive the two powerhouses into...
Future partners? Authoritarian China (top) and democratic India share many
similarities, but display contrasting styles and methods in economics and the workplace
STAMFORD: In late September 2007, a leading financial analyst...
Companies such as Dole Fresh Flowers downsize in Latin America to confront increasing competition coming from Asia and Africa. Some Dole workers suspect that the company imposed lay-offs because strong unions opposed long hours and exposure to pesticides. Increasing cost of fuel and a decline in...
Click here for the original article on The Philadelphia Inquirer's website.
After pursuing false threats in Iraq, the US and UK may have trouble convincing other countries to sanction or attack Iran. Regularly threatening Israel and boasting about every nuclear breakthrough, Iran’s president certainly does not hesitate in helping the US and UK make a case that the nation...
Here's the thing that people often forget about the boy who cried wolf: he did see a wolf eventually. Could that be how things are turning out in the Gulf? Did Britain and the US point to a false threat in Iraq, only to...
An economist for a US investment bank developed the acronym BRIC a decade ago, lumping together the solid, fast-growing economies of Brazil, Russia, India and China and arguing the four would outpace the top six Western economies before 2050. The analysis resonated, fueling confidence among the hot...
It’s a strange case of life imitating spreadsheet. The Bric (Brazil, Russia, India and China) bloc, which was conceived 10 years ago by a Goldman Sachs analyst as a clever acronym for the world’s fast-developing large economies, seems to have...
