Written on
April 3rd, 2012
Toyota wanted a strong Mandarin name for its Prado SUV in China, but the Japanese automaker quickly regretted its choice of 霸道 (bà-dào) during the 2003 product launch. Donny Huang ’94, the founder and managing partner at 4stones Cross-Cultural Consulting Group, said the word roughly means to rule by might like a tyrant. “I cannot find a truly equivalent word for badao in English,” Huang said March 15, 2012, during the Developing Leaders for Global Roles Summit, a two-day event organized by the Najafi Global Mindset Institute at Thunderbird School of Global Management. Toyota’s ad campaign showed the SUV driving past Chinese stone lions, which salute in respect. Huang said the concept might have worked for a Chinese automaker, but Toyota failed to consider the implications of stone lions saluting a Japanese product in China, where many still resent the Japanese occupation. | Video: Toyota’s Global Mindset Blunder in China (2:37)
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April 3rd, 2012
As the founder and managing partner at 4stones Cross-Cultural Consulting Group, Donny Huang ’94 often meets Western expatriates struggling to understand their Chinese counterparts. “The No. 1 complaint I hear is that Chinese managers lack initiative,” Huang said March 15, 2012, during the Developing Leaders for Global Roles Summit, a two-day event organized by the Najafi Global Mindset Institute at Thunderbird School of Global Management. “They are not proactive.” Western expatriates often interpret the passivity as a sign of poor leadership potential, but Huang said a deeper look at Chinese culture provides better understanding. | Video: Leadership from a Chinese Perspective (1:59)
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April 3rd, 2012
Associates accused Gary Ranker ’67, Ph.D., of being un-American when the California native decided to pursue a career outside the United States in the 1960s. Instead of starting gradually, Ranker dived into his first overseas assignment after finishing an undergraduate degree in economics and psychology at the University of Redlands. He took a job with Mercedes-Benz in Germany, boarded with a local family, and avoided English. “I decided to throw myself into the deep water,” Ranker said March 15, 2012, during the Developing Leaders for Global Roles Summit, a two-day event organized by the Najafi Global Mindset Institute at Thunderbird School of Global Management. He used different terminology in the 1960s, but he said his goal from the beginning was to acquire global mindset. His personal evolution toward global mindset has been mirrored by corporate and leadership movements that he has witnessed in the recent decades. | Video: A Personal Journey (2:55) | Video: Corporate Evolution (2:18) | Video: Inclusive Leadership (1:58)
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April 2nd, 2012
A group of Thunderbird students have focused on the online dating market in the United States for their recent marketing research paper. The research focused on two brands, Match.com (Match) and OkCupid. The goal was to explore options for Interactive Corporation, the holding company for both dating sites, to simultaneously grow the online dating market and increase visibility and profitability of newly acquired OkCupid.
The students analyzed the product, promotion, placement and pricing as well as segmentation, targeting and positioning of each brand. In the end, they recommended a dual-branding strategy – one that differentiates the two brands and positions each to reach its optimal target market. Specifically, the students recommended that OKCupid emphasize the mobile app market, expand the focus from getting dates to building friendships, and build popularity by bridging the gap between meeting online and meeting in person by using promotional events to create buzz.
Follow this link to see the full corporate marketing article by Thunderbird students Noah Emery, Kate Gillette, Megan Groves, Roger Li, Christian Lorentzen, Ullas Rameshappa and Amanda Roberson
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March 30th, 2012
Global market uncertainty and volatility will not go away soon, which means governments must implement new policy management styles to cope with the increased flow of global finance, Thunderbird Professor F. John Mathis, Ph.D., said March 21, 2012, in a live alumni webinar. “The globalization of finance is requiring a different learning of how to manage policy in a country to get real results — real growth and job creation,” Mathis said. “What’s growing is the importance of emerging markets.” He said total exports to advanced economies dropped from 73 percent in 2004 to 64 percent in 2010. “That raises an issue because we know emerging markets are more volatile,” Mathis said. He was joined by Wolfgang Koester, CEO of FiREapps, and Andy Gage, Head of Marketing of FiREapps. | Video: Watch the full webinar (58:42)
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March 29th, 2012
Nearly 10 years have passed since a “collective epiphany” in Switzerland gave rise to the Thunderbird Professional Oath of Honor, the world’s first pledge formally adopted by a business school faculty and Board of Trustees. “Since it was born as a collective epiphany by a group of young leaders in Geneva, the idea has lived on and grown thanks to the commitment and work of many people,” said Thunderbird President Ángel Cabrera, Ph.D., who attended the 2002 World Economic Forum event and brought the idea to Thunderbird in 2004. | Video: Thunderbird Oath History (5:10) | Video: Students Recite the Oath (1:01) | Read the Thunderbird Professional Oath of Honor
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March 16th, 2012
By Ángel Cabrera, Ph.D., and Gregory Unruh, Ph.D.
Globalization has shaken up traditional leadership development. Language immersion, cultural etiquette tips and the like are wildly insufficient to prepare managers for the demands of today’s global marketplace. Likewise, worrying about expatriate culture shock or the risk that employees “go native” are concerns of a past era. Today’s global business needs truly global leaders. They can’t just act global. They have to be global. Real global leaders are a new breed with identifiable traits. | Video: Ángel Cabrera and Gregory Unruh on global leadership (2:07) | Amazon: Being Global: How to Think, Act and Lead in a Transformed World
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February 29th, 2012
The team chemistry that propelled the Arizona Diamondbacks to the 2011 National League Western Division championship started off the field with a campaign to fix the front office culture, team President and CEO Derrick Hall said Feb. 28, 2012, at Thunderbird School of Global Management. “We quickly cleaned up our culture in the front office and became an award-winning company that won basically every award that we could for what we were doing in the community and what we were doing for workplace culture,” Hall said. “Yet we weren’t winning on the field.” | Video: A Winning Corporate Culture (2:59)
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February 21st, 2012
An organization’s tagline is an important driver of brand recognition. Just like those referenced in this image, a successful tagline resonates with consumers, and is easy to remember. It’s time we harnessed the power of Thunderbird in a powerful, memorable tagline as well.
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February 21st, 2012
By Samantha M. Novick
Thunderbird School of Global Management students who survive Multinational Corporate Finance (FORAD) love to swap war stories. They laugh about bizarre products such as Sex Panther Cologne — made with real bits of panther. They brag about working 18 hours straight, sleeping on the classroom floor, and then resuming their studies. Perhaps more importantly, they talk about building friendships during the ordeal that have spanned decades. Following is a sampling of FORAD memories shared by T-bird alumni. Responses came from Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and e-mail. Add your memories in the comments section below. | Related Article: Alumni Duo Works to Save FORAD
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