Financial Times

FT Business Education Blog with Dr.Goddard  

• The Power of Transparency

  This is not going to be my typical blog addressing the major public policy issues of the day. However, in reality, it goes to the heart of the central dynamic that transcends all issues, public, private, and so on. So it is going to be profound. Hopefully that does not sound too presumptuous. The subject is power and wealth. As a political economist, and a human being, these two concepts are central to my studies and life. I am particularly intrigued by power and wealth, who has it, who does not, and how is it exercised in the world and more narrowly in an academic context. Dare I even say a healthy academic environment? Blogs certainly allow me to express my opinion so get ready for precisely that! Read more

• Culture Matters in International Business

  My several most recent blogs have largely focused on public policy and the big issues of the day. Today is going to be a little different. A debate has been raging within the business education world about the appropriateness or utility of the oath of honor/ethics that many b-schools have adopted and their MBA graduates often recite in unison at semester openings or graduation ceremonies. Some say that this is purely marketing and does not really influence behavior. The more cynical among us might argue that this is just good public relations and necessary to counter the bum rap, and potentially greater regulation, that business has gotten lately with the likes of Enron, Madoff, Wall Street greed, and now BP. However, any good social scientist who has read Max Weber’s classic linking values and economic performance intuitively recognizes that culture and ethics do matter and are consequential in the competition among companies and countries. Values and integrity do impact who gets what, when, where, and how in our competitive human reality. Read more

• Threats to International Business Coming from Many Directions

  As a professor teaching courses on the global political economy and the business environment of Asia to MBA students, I am always concerned that my students establish behaviors today that will serve them for the rest of their careers. Being rational, fueled by having taught for close to two decades, I am acutely aware of the likely reading habits of my MBA/EMBA students once they leave Thunderbird, or Harvard, or Wharton, or South Carolina. Honestly, they are much more likely to spend thirty to forty five minutes a day staying abreast of what is happening internationally than they are to read a textbook or an article from an academic journal. Recognizing this, while they are in my classes I try to establish a realistic lifelong learning habit of daily reading of the Financial Times, International Herald Tribune, The Economist, Le Monde, or whatever seems to suit them. This is for reasons intimately related to their careers and job performance. I want them to be articulate observers, have the vocabulary and finesse to operate in the complexity of a global economy, even capable of anticipating and assessing the myriad of risks and opportunities that confront international businesses. Addressing the former, if anything today it is obvious that risks for international businesses come from many directions. Read more