Cross-cultural management

Scrap metal entrepreneur Stephen Greer naively trusted his foreign partners—and lost millions to fraud. Here’s how he reclaimed his confidence and rebuilt his company.

With few exceptions, Americans are relative newcomers on the international business scene. Today, as in Mark Twain’s time, we are all too often “innocents abroad,” in an era when naiveté and blundering in foreign business dealings may have serious political repercussions. When the American executive travels abroad to do business, he is frequently shocked to […]

How to ensure the work gets done—without going crazy.

Because of growing commitments of their companies in developing countries, large numbers of American and European managers have entered negotiations with government officials in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Also, with emerging nationalism, these negotiations have become increasingly frustrating. Sometimes misunderstandings have been so great that they have led to a breakdown in negotiations that […]

Make the most of even the briefest trip.

The first wave of foreign direct investment in China, in the 1980s, mostly took the form of joint ventures. A second wave followed in the 1990s in the form of greenfield wholly foreign-owned enterprises (WFOEs). Now a third wave of foreign direct investment—cross-border mergers and acquisitions—is gaining strength. Consider the forces driving this third wave. […]

Chinese business culture is unique, but not in all the ways outsiders tend to assume. To identify the most common myths, we interviewed dozens of North American and European expats as well as some Chinese managers now working in the West, all of whom have spent at least three years doing business in China. Our […]

And they make up one-quarter of U.S. physicians.

In some cultures, there's a big gap between male and female leaders.

Employees who live far away face many disadvantages.

Photography: Lissa Gotwals Maya Angelou worked as a cook, streetcar conductor, waitress, singer, dancer, editor, teacher, civil rights organizer, and actress before becoming one of America’s most beloved writers. Now 85 and a professor at Wake Forest University, she says her success as a storyteller stems from “seeing us as more alike than we are […]

Traditional satisfaction surveys often obscure the differences among consumers in different regions.

The CEO of a Toronto-based toy company is trying to decide whom to hire for a critical position in its Asia division. He has two strong candidates: a...

Firms need to understand the people and places they affect.

Six elements to keep in mind as you're trying to forge bonds.

Five strategies culled from top ASEAN executives.

Why you need a language strategy now

Commentaries from the Experts The World Leadership Survey in the November–December 1990 HBR began a worldwide dialogue on the important issues facing managers in the 1990s. The survey results were published in “Transcending Business Boundaries: 12,000 World Managers View Change” (HBR May–June 1991). What follows is another installment of the discussion among internationally recognized management […]

Photography: Eric Leleu Alain Ducasse learned to love food on his parents’ farm. He received his first three-star Michelin rating—for Le Louis XV, in Monaco—when he was just 33 and now runs an empire of more than 20 restaurants (with a collective 19 Michelin stars) in cities from Tokyo to Las Vegas. Interviewed by Patrice […]

For much of the twentieth century, business managers around the world confronted a series of walls. Walls between nations that establish the boundaries of national markets, national practices, or national social, economic, and political systems. Walls between the company and the society in which it exists, drawing sharp distinctions between corporate interests and social interests. […]