Corruption Notes (A) and (B) added to the GlobaLens Catalog

GlobaLens has added a two-part Corruption in International Business note to its case catalog. These conceptual notes, which are accompanied by a detailed teaching note*, are designed to facilitate classroom discussion of corruption in international business, options available to managers when faced with corruption, and various efforts to combat corruption, by firms, NGOs, national governments, and international organizations. The material has been used successfully at dozens of business schools and Executive Education programs.  

Corruption in International Business (A) takes a personal view, pushing students to define corrupt activity and reflect on how they would react in a series of situations.  The note is organized into 5 sections.  The note:

1. Introduces a global view of corrupt practices across nations by presenting indicators from Transparency International.
2. Describes the debate surrounding the “costs” and “benefits” of corruption, and presents estimates of the economic consequences of corruption.
3. Presents an overview of the history of legal efforts to combat corruption, with a detailed discussion of the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA).
4. The note concludes with ten real-world caselets designed to spark discussion on the legal, ethical, and practical tensions surrounding corrupt practices.

Corruption in International Business (B) presents various strategies for combating corruption. They range from micro-level strategies such as internal firm controls to macro transnational strategies that have been promoted by the United Nations and International Monetary Fund.

The notes and accompanying caselets, as well as the detailed teaching plan, are designed to personalize the different competing dimensions of corruption.

* The teaching note is available to registered educators. If you are an educator, please register here.

Sustainability and Base of the Pyramid Thought Leader Stu Hart Adds His Cases to GlobaLens - WDI’s New Online Resource for International Business Educators

Stuart L. Hart, the Samuel C. Johnson Chair in Sustainable Global Enterprise at Cornell University, has recently added his teaching cases to the GlobaLens Library. We are excited to include these high-quality pieces in our case collection and feel that they provide a great foundation for GlobaLens to become a leader in disseminating the latest thought in sustainability. Green business practices such as resource management and product stewardship are becoming more important to business, and particularly to international business. Hart and other thought leaders in sustainability know that it is imperative to educate tomorrow’s leaders on this aspect of management.

• DejaShoe describes the struggles facing a green entrepreneur who finds herself quickly under scrutiny and pressure from her investors.
• McDonalds case series highlights the complications of partnership management and the intricacies of life-cycle analysis in the multinational.
• The Monsanto case explores the company’s transformation from a chemical company to a leader in life sciences and their subsequent stakeholder management issues.
• The case on Nike’s World Shoe Project, which is also used by Ted London in his Strategies for the Base of the Pyramid class at the Ross School of Business, challenges students to think about effective strategies to design products and business models to reach the global poor.
• Finally, the Weyerhaeuser case asks students to think about plotting the future for one of the world’s largest forestry management companies.

These cases complement the existing sustainability cases in our catalog, for example Parques para Chile and Vydra: Outsourcing Social Enterprise Management to Maximize Mission Impact. All together, they encompass a large breadth of sustainability issues, and provide and excellent starting point for GlobaLens in the area of sustainability.

WDI's London Wins Prestigious Case-writing Competition

Thursday, April 17, 2008

More info: http://wdi.umich.edu/News/438/

New video to complement Acumen Fund Case(s)

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

The keynote address by Acumen founder and CEO Jacqueline Novogratz from the January 2008 Ross Net Impact Forum is now available for viewing. Novogratz spoke about Acumen's business model and its plans for the future and then took questions from the audience. Click here to watch the talk.

This keynote address complements GlobaLens case "Acumen Fund: How to Make the Greatest Impact" by Ted London, Senior Research Fellow and Director of WDI’s Base of the Pyramid Initiative, and Moses Lee, Research Associate at the William Davidson Institute who specializes in Base of the Pyramid topics.  The case first profiles the organization, an innovative global philanthropic venture capital fund that makes investments in health, housing, water, and energy at the base of the pyramid. It then asks the student to draft a clear and compelling proposal of how to best use a $10 million contribution from a family foundation. 

The learning objectives of the case include: (i) understanding the role and importance of intermediary organizations in facilitating the development of base of the pyramid (BoP) ventures; (ii) assessing an intermediary’s competencies and priorities; (iii) making recommendations to an intermediary on expanding its activities.

Novogratz's inspirational talk gave the students the opportunity to see what people who are actually working at the base of the pyramid are doing and encouraged them to work in the field to try to make a noticeable difference in society.  “It’s extraordinary to see the sea change that I really believe is happening in your generation that’s refusing to accept the status quo and yet is blending a really wonderful mix of idealism and pragmatism,” she said.