Management in Practice

As businesses have expanded beyond boundaries, they've exceeded the grasp of many national laws and norms. What standards should exist for how businesses affect people's lives? Christine Bader, advisor to the UN special representative of the secretary-general for business and human rights, discusses points of progress and remaining challenges.

Oil pumped from the Niger Delta is loaded on supertankers and shipped into the global market, accounting for 3% of world production and generating substantial revenues for the Nigerian government. What has this connection to the world economy done for Nigeria?

The lives of people in distant countries are increasingly being linked, through commerce, communications technology, or culture. Researchers are trying to parse out how the gains from globalization are touching the lives of the poorest citizens in developing countries.

You can find Cosmopolitan on news­stands in Korea, India, Russia, Greece, Brazil, China, and 50 other countries. How did the idea of the “fun, fearless female” go global — and pull in profits for Hearst?

Can globalization thrive without a strong foundation of moral and social values? Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair argues that all human systems rely on certain fundamental values to function well over the long term, and that applying this understanding to globalization could produce tangible benefits.

With consumers becoming increasingly concerned about how their goods are produced, international companies are faced with managing conditions — as well as productivity — all along their supply chains. In many cases, that means finding ways to oversee factories in China.

Global commerce would be impossible without the movement of information — contracts, arrangements, plans, blueprints. Before the digital revolution transformed many of these things into bits and pixels, there was a postal revolution that improved the speed of information flow around the world.

The global economy is in a severe slowdown. GDPs are dropping, the rosters of the unemployed are getting longer, and there’s no obvious resolution in sight. Will the effects of this economic crisis — and of government responses — threaten the system of commercial relationships that has developed over the last 30 years?

Elizabeth Serlemitsos ’93 is chief advisor to the Zambian National AIDS Council, which is the government entity responsible for coordinating the country’s response to HIV and AIDS. The council works with international donors to develop and implement both private and public sector programs to combat devastating impacts of the disease.

Solving problems at the intersection of business and society may pay dividends for a small Bay Area venture capital firm.