Pankaj Ghemawat

Professor of Global Strategy and Bestselling Author

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Pankaj Ghemawat is the Global Professor of Management and Strategy and Director of the Center for the Globalization of Education and Management at the Stern School of Business at New York University, and the Anselmo Rubiralta Professor of Global Strategy at IESE Business School. Between 1983 and 2008 he was on the faculty at the Harvard Business School where, in 1991, he became the youngest person in the school’s history to be appointed a full professor.  Pankaj Ghemawat was also the youngest “guru” included in the guide to the greatest management thinkers of all time published in 2008 by The Economist.

Pankaj Ghemawat’s books include Commitment, Games Businesses Play, Strategy and the Business Landscape and Redefining Global Strategy. IBM Chairman and CEO Sam Palmisano described the latter book as “an important strategic guidebook for leaders of the 21st century globally integrated Enterprise analytic framework that is both visionary and pragmatic – aware of the broader historic trajectories of globalization, but grounded in the real kinds of decisions business leaders have to make.”

Pankaj Ghemawat’s new book, World 3.0, was published in May 2011 by Harvard Business Review Press. Pascal Lamy, Director General of the World Trade Organization, has described it as “offering recommendations that should inspire all global stakeholders in times of major global challenges”  and Peter Löscher, CEO of Siemens, as “the right book at the right time…[about] ways to make the global economy more stable–and more sustainable.”  And according to an early review in The Economist, “World 3.0.should be read by anyone who wants to understand the most important economic development of our time.” World 3.0 won the 50 Thinkers Book Award for the best business book published in 2010-2011, the Axiom Business Book Gold Award in the International Business/Globalization category and the IESE Alumni Research Excellence Award.

Pankaj Ghemawat also developed the DHL Global Connectedness Index 2014 a comprehensive analysis of globalization and the rise of emerging markets.  The report which was first released in November 2011 has available versions for 2012 and the  2013 Depth Index of Globalization.  According to Pascal Lamy, Director General of the World Trade Organization, “In the current global economic climate where the threat of increased protectionism and isolationist tendencies is of genuine concern, this report offers a compelling argument, based on a methodologically robust analysis, of why increased global and regional inter-connectedness and openness is the more prudent policy path.”

Pankaj Ghemawat has written more than 100 research articles and case studies, is one of the world’s best-selling authors of teaching cases and fellow of the Academy of International Business and of the Strategic Management Society. Other recent honors include the Booz Eminent Scholar Award of the International Management Division of the Academy of Management, the McKinsey Award for the best article published in the Harvard Business Review, the Irwin Educator of the Year award from the Business Policy and Strategy division of the Academy of Management and the Herbert Simon Award of Rajk Laszlo College for Advance Studies in Budapest. Among other recognitions are the IESE-Fundación BBVA Economics for Management Prize and the IESE Alumni Research Excellence Prize for Redefining Global Strategy.

Pankaj Ghemawat helps companies and business schools better understand and address international opportunities and challenges.  He served on the taskforce appointed by the AACSB, the leading accreditation body for business schools, on the globalization of management education, and authored the report’s recommendations about what to teach students about globalization, and how.

 

World 3.0: Global Prosperity and How to Achieve It

It may seem we're living in a borderless world where ideas, goods and people flow freely from nation to nation. But this widely held belief isn’t even close to reality, says Pankaj Ghemawat. In fact, more than 90 percent of all phone calls, investments and charity are local. Backed by a wealth of compelling data and drawing from his recent book "World 3.0," Ghemawat presents his theory that our world is semi-globalized at best, and discusses how businesses must – and can – capitalize on opportunities to be “globally local.”

Ghemawat strongly advocates for a global economy where greater prosperity is created from more market integration. Although contrary to powerful human instincts, increased integration leads to increased prosperity and safety, broadening circles of cooperation. He illuminates the mindset shifts and policies needed to reap the rewards of a connected, interdependent and diverse World 3.0.

No Place Like Home: Realities of Global Expansion

Companies routinely overestimate the attractiveness of foreign markets. Dazzled by the sheer size of untapped and emerging markets, they often lose sight of the vast challenges of pioneering new and very different territories. Many companies, according to Pankaj Ghemawat, have failed globally because the deep local market immersion required to succeed is often sacrificed for commercial expediency. By basing his research on real-world case studies and with a mastery of economic data, he offers CEOs and business leaders refreshing and effective strategies for sustained business development in today’s economic climate.

Ghemawat maintains that the key to successful global expansion is to adopt a “cosmopolitan corporate strategy,” driven first by understanding and then adapting to local differences across geographies. He contends that the most critical ingredient is a diverse management team at the top: a team steered by a cosmopolitan leader who knows where the company is anchored and how dramatically different our world is in each locale.

Management and Market Failures

Much of the recent discussion by management thinkers of the problems of capitalism has tended to focus on management failures—the notion that managers fail to act in their companies’ best (long-term) interests. But it discounts the well established point that market failures may also play an important role in generating poor outcomes. A similar imbalance seems to characterize the business sector in general, at least in the U.S. says Pankaj Ghemawat. In fact, a survey suggests people with higher degrees in business administration and finance are likely to take market failures less seriously than people with equivalent degrees in other fields. Ghemawat delves into why taking both management failures and market failures seriously does more than simply stretch the mind: it also exposes an interaction effect in that management failures are likely to matter more in the presence of market failures than in their absence.

World 3.0 . Global Prosperity and How to Achieve it

The Great Crisis of 2008 has forced many of us to reexamine our beliefs about markets and globalization. Do propositions about the gains from market integration survive the reality of market failures? Or might we be better off - as people are particularly prone to suggest in turbulent times - pulling back from, rather than pushing forward with, integration in order to deal with our problems on a smaller, more manageable scale?

Unfortunately, discussion of these and related questions seems to have broken down. This book aims to bring analysis to bear on those fundamental questions - in a way that advances the discussion among people who are interested in building a better world rather than tearing down the present one.

Ghemawat starts by presenting and examining the hard data including:
•The extent to which goods and services, capital resources, information streams, and people actually cross national borders in the world we live in;
•How much GDP is estimated to grow if we open up more;
•How the impact of globalization on labor markets compares to that of technological change;
•Whether connecting up volatile national markets increases risk through contagion or reduces it via diversification;
•Whether trade causes more or less environmental pollution.

World 3.0 . Global Prosperity and How to Achieve it

Redefining Global Strategy

Why do so many global strategies fail-despite companies' powerful brands and other border-crossing advantages? Seduced by market size, the illusion of a borderless, "flat" world, and the allure of similarities, firms launch one-size-fits-all strategies.

But cross-border differences are larger than we often assume, explains Pankaj Ghemawat in Redefining Global Strategy. Most economic activity - including direct investment, tourism, and communication - happens locally, not internationally.

In this "semiglobalized" world, one-size-fits-all strategies don't stand a chance. Companies must instead reckon with cross-border differences. Ghemawat shows you how - by providing tools for:
•Assessing the cultural, administrative, geographic, and economic differences between countries at the industry level and deciding which ones merit attention.
•Tracking the implications of particular border-crossing moves for your company's ability to create value.
•Creating superior performance with strategies optimized for adaptation (adjusting to differences), aggregation (overcoming differences), and arbitrage (exploiting differences), and for compound objectives.

Redefining Global Strategy

Cases about Redefining Global Strategy

In Cases about Redefining Global Strategy, Pankaj Ghemawat and Jordan Siegel have assembled 26 full-length case studies as a resource for active learning about the nature of cross-border differences and strategies. As technology innovation globalizes markets and firms, management education must adopt a truly modern perspective on globalization—one that illuminates differences across borders rather than emphasizing similarities and imposing local models onto far-flung cultures. A new generation of managers and innovators who must compete in a "flat" world cannot succeed while following a one-size-fits-all approach to global strategy.

Pankaj Ghemawat, Professor of Strategy at Spain's IESE Business School and author of World 3.0 and Redefining Global Strategy, and Harvard Business School Professor Jordan Siegel represent a new era of thinking in global strategy. This carefully chosen selection of classics and new material from Harvard Business Publishing also includes an introduction and six introductory module notes that identify key themes and strategic concepts explored in the cases. Though attuned to the format of an MBA course, the cases and text may also be used individually or in programs outside the strategy curriculum

Cases about Redefining Global Strategy

Games Businesses Play

Game theory has come to dominate industrial organization economics, but business strategists continue to debate its usefulness. So far, empirical work on the application of game theory to business strategy has been too limited to force a consensus. As a (partial) remedy, Games Businesses Play uses detailed case studies of competitive interaction to explore the uses and limits of game theory as a tool for business strategists.

Because they are analytical rather than descriptive, the case studies are not typical teaching cases. The cases are paired with customized game-theoretic models that cover a wide range of commitment decisions, from short-run commitments such as price to longer-run commitments such as capacity expansion and reduction, product and process innovation, and battles for market share. A variety of quantitative and qualitative techniques are used to test the models' predictions on case data. In addition the book sheds light on a number of other issues important to strategic management, including the resource-based view of the firm and the emergent theory of dynamic capabilities.

Games Businesses Play

Strategy and the Business Landscape

Pankaj Ghemawat, in collaboration with Bruno Cassiman, David Collis and Jan Rivkin, has prepared the third edition of an introductory strategy textbook that adopts a value-focused, firm-centered perspective on strategy. The book is meant to be rigorous in its research base, pragmatic in its focus, and concise. The third edition includes new, full-length chapters on competitive dynamics (with Bruno Cassiman) and on corporate strategy (with Jan Rivkin).

Offers a contemporary yet historically grounded perspective on the field of strategy. Reflects the version of Harvard's required Competition and Strategy course offered to MBA students. Combines up-to-date academic thinking with examples and insights drawn from consulting. DLC: Strategic planning.

Commitment

To create a competitive advantage, a company must commit itself to developing a set of capabilities superior to its competitors; But such commitments tend to be costly and hard to reverse. How then, should a company decide which broad path, or strategy, to commit itself to? And how are competition and uncertainty to be accounted for in that decision?

In this brilliant reassessment of how companies gain and sustain competitive advantage, Pankaj Ghemawat consolidates contemporary research in economics and other disciplines into a comprehensive yet practical framework for comparing commitments to strategically distinct options. This framework will help managers address specific strategic choices such as entry, exit, vertical/horizontal integration, capacity expansion, and innovation, as well as choices of generic strategy.

Commitment