Archive for March, 2011

Effective leaders routinely leave the C suite and mingle with associates at all levels of the organization, Marriott Corporation executive and author Ed Fuller said March 29, 2011, at Thunderbird School of Global Management. “When you get out and talk with customers and talk to the associates, you find out the realities of what’s going on in your business,” said Fuller, Marriott’s president and managing director of International Lodging. “When you’re stifled away in the ivory tower, you don’t have the opportunity to really find out what the issues are and where they need your help.” | Video: You Can’t Lead with Your Feet on the Desk (2:06) | Video: Marriott’s Cross-Cultural Hospitality (1:45) | Video: Ed Fuller answers the Thunderbird Question (1:17)
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Few managers tolerate major workplace violations such as bullying, harassment, sabotage, theft and violence. But they often look the other way when their employees engage in milder acts of bad behavior that habitual offenders dismiss as unintentional or inconsequential. Although some forms of workplace incivility might be inevitable, Thunderbird School of Global Management Professor Christine Pearson, Ph.D., said the costs accumulate and can become staggering. Pearson, co-author of The Cost of Bad Behavior, will discuss leadership strategies for curbing workplace incivility during a free campus seminar April 28, 2011. The presentation will be the second installment in the 2011 Thunderbird Executive Lecture Series organized by Thunderbird Executive MBA faculty and staff. | Video: Managing Workplace Incivility (2:49) | Video: Managing iPhone Incivility (2:45)
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New corporate managers might not need global mindset science to succeed in their first assignment with a multinational team. Many are smart enough to figure things out on their own. “That is probably true,” Thunderbird Professor Mansour Javidan, Ph.D., acknowledges. “But there are two ways you can figure it out. There is a hard way and an easy way.” He says the hard way is to parachute managers into new global environments without any support and hope for the best. The easier way is for companies to take a proactive approach by helping them prepare for the cross-cultural situations they will encounter. Learn about Thunderbird’s Global Mindset® Institute in this Thunderbird Knowledge Network video series. | Video: Global Mindset Advantage (2:18) | Video: Global Mindset Development (2:35) | Video: Global Mindset Investment (2:49) | Video: Global Mindset Inventory (2:20) | Video: Global Mindset Origins (2:13) | Video: Globalization Benefits and Risks (2:41)
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Successful entrepreneurs need at least six things when launching any venture, Thunderbird School of Global Management alumnus Diego Veitia ’66 said March 22, 2011, during a Global Issues Forum presentation in Glendale, Arizona. Veitia, founder and director of a Fortune 50 company that has grown into INTL FCStone, calls the essential ingredients the pillars of entrepreneurship. “The most rewarding part of entrepreneurship is building and creating something out of nothing,” the Cuban-born businessman said. “But you must build upon these pillars.” | Video: Pillars of Entrepreneurship (2:45)
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By Andreas Schotter and Mary B. Teagarden, Thunderbird professors

In 2011, almost a decade after admission to the World Trade Organization, the ability to protect intellectual property (IP) and other corporate know-how in China remains one of the most critical issues for foreign multinational corporations, especially for those doing business in the high-tech and service sectors. Surprisingly little research has investigated IP protection outside the traditional litigation and mitigation approach. Previous studies fall short in providing a comprehensive understanding about successful IP protection activities that work. Our research intends to correct this. We conducted more than 97 in-depth interviews with executives from 50 multinational corporations, IP protection specialists, business consultants and governmental agencies. | Video: Protecting Intellectual Property in China (3:47) | Video: Alumni webinar featuring Mary B. Teagarden (54:44)
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Trust does not come easy in Guatemala, a country stung by frequent reports of corruption and 36 years of civil war that raged as recently as 1996. Student consultant Stewart Swayze ’11 said relationship building quickly became a priority when his TEM Lab team arrived Jan. 29, 2011, to help the Guatemalan Ministry of Economy (MinEco) boost small and medium-sized business exports through an Inter-American Development Bank grant. “The public and private sectors in Guatemala have not maintained the most fruitful relationships,” he said. “We worked to change this. We bridged the gap and built relationships.” | Video: TEM Lab Guatemala 2011 (3:02)
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TEM Lab team members found an abundance of paper when they arrived in Cambodia on Feb. 1, 2011, to begin a consulting project for nonprofit information technology company Digital Divide Data (DDD). Their first day on the ground, the students walked among aisles of patient records stored in the back room of a local hospital. “They have humongous amounts of paper,” TEM Lab consultant Oseas Ramirez ’11 said. “Some hospitals have no digital record keeping system at all.” The team found conditions even less efficient in the financial services industry, where banks lack uniform systems for checking client credit histories, vetting loan applications or sharing account information among branches.
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Thunderbird cricket players will double as cultural ambassadors for India when they compete March 15-20, 2011, at the American College Cricket Spring Break Championship in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. “If you understand cricket or attend a cricket match in India, that’s a microcosm of our culture,” Thunderbird team captain Sidharth Madhav said March 11 during practice in Glendale, Arizona. “There is a lot of enthusiasm, the food, the people, the color, the noise — that is pretty much the essence of India in the stadium.” Madhav said nearly everyone in the country shares a passion for the sport. “They say cricket is a religion,” he said. | Video: Thunderbird School Cricket (1:44) | Photos: Team shots on Flickr
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Libyan rebels fighting against autocratic leader Muammar Gaddafi will decide their own fate, but Thunderbird Professor Paul Kinsinger said they might need outside assistance in two ways. “As to whether the Libyans need any outside assistance, I see two categories where help is most critical,” Kinsinger said March 2, 2011, during a free alumni webinar. “The first is humanitarian assistance, primarily on the Tunisian border where there are many thousands of refugees trying to get out of Libya and away from the strife. The second could be — and I use the word ‘could’ because I think it is still very much conditional — some kind of limited military intervention or assistance to the rebels to even the playing field.” Kinsinger, a Middle East expert who spent nearly 20 years with the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, leads Thunderbird’s Learning Consulting Network. During his hourlong presentation, he responded to live questions from the online audience. Watch the full webinar for more insights.
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Corporate leaders seeking to fulfill their ethical obligations need to clarify their responsibilities, commit to improve and then find ways to capture value for shareholders and society, Thunderbird Professor Gregory Unruh, Ph.D., said March 3, 2011 during a free campus seminar for prospective students. Unruh calls the three-pronged strategy of “clarify, commit and capture” the three C’s of corporate social responsibility. His presentation, “Ethics, CSR and the Pursuit of Sustainability,” was the first installment in a 2011 lecture series organized by Thunderbird Executive MBA faculty and staff. | Blog: Gregory Unruh in the Huffington Post | Video: Social Contract for Business (2:52) | Video: CSR Strategy: Clarify (1:51) | Video: CSR Strategy: Commit (2:16) | Video: CSR Strategy: Capture (2:09)
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