Ford Library

Ford Library presents a new database based on the widely popular series Kiss, Bow or Shake Hands: The Bestselling Guide to Doing Business in More Than Sixty Countries.

This new database also includes Dun & Bradstreet’s Guide to Doing Business Around the World and articles written for publications like Industry Week and American Way Magazine, as well as the 2008 World Holiday and Time Zone Guide for over 100 countries.

Connect to Kiss, Bow or Shake Hands

E-books on Culture, Business Etiquette, and Global Business Practices: (These e-books are available through the Duke online catalog via NetLibrary.)

• Managing Complexity in Global Organizations (IMD Executive Development Series): Drawing together insights from across the expert faculty, Managing Complexity in the Global Organization presents IMD’s framework on how to understand complexity and its four key drivers (diversity; interdependence; ambiguity and flux), along with solutions on specific issues in a variety of functions, industries and markets. The focus is on providing practical solutions based on real-life examples.

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Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Fight Terrorism and Build Nations… One School at a Time by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin. Penguin (2007).

After author Greg Mortenson failed in his attempt to climb to the summit of K2, the world’s second tallest mountain, he began his descent. He became lost, disoriented and dangerously ill but stumbled upon an impoverished Pakistani village named Korphe, where he stayed for seven weeks among the Balti people who looked after him. As he left, he promised to return and build a school for them. This is the story of his work to fulfill that promise, and of his success in building 50 other schools for girls in Pakistan’s and Afghanistan’s poorest communities.

In this personal story about globalism, Mortenson portrays the lives of village elders, mujahideen and Taliban officials in this remote area of the world. He argues that the US must fight Islamic extremism in the region by collaborating to alleviate poverty and improve access to education, particularly for girls. It is also a story about a meaningful life created by one committed person, a mountain climber who became a humanitarian.

Also available in audiobook format at Ford Library.

© Reviewer: Meg Trauner & Ford Library – Fuqua School of Business. All rights reserved.

With the Fuqua School developing an MBA program in Dubai, I thought it would be interesting to look at the top 10 companies in the area:

1. Emirates – airline, est. sales $7,798,600,000
2. Emaar Properties – real estate, est. sales $4,783,6000,000
3. ETA ASCON Group – diversified, est. sales $4,000,000,00
4. National Bank of Dubai (NBD) – financial services, est. sales $2,860,300,000
5. DP World Ltd – marine terminal development and operations, est. sales 2,731,400,000
6. Jumbo Electronics – electronic and appliance retailer, est. sales $2,000,0000,000
7. Dodsal Group – energy and infrastructure development, est. sales $2,000,000,000
8. Mashreqbank – financial services, est. sales $1,819,500,000
9. Dubai Islamic Bank, financial services, est. sales $1,636,100,000
10. Emirates Bank International – financial services, est. sales $1,560,200,000

If you would like to know more about these companies, contact us at: reference-librarians@fuqua.duke.edu.

Rivoli, Pietra. Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy: An economist examines the markets, power and politics of world trade. Wiley, 2005

In 1979, when I worked at Ohio State, Honda built a factory in Marysville, Ohio. The economy in the Midwest was in shambles following the Arab oil embargo of the 70’s. Employment climbed to 10% and inflation was 12%. The mortgage on our first home was 13%, which looked like a bargain after rates climbed to 16%. Everyone we knew in Ohio tried to “buy American,” but after the Honda factory opened in Marysville, using unemployed (non-union) autoworkers, we began to wonder what it meant to buy American.

Twenty years later in 1999, an economist from Georgetown University’s school of business, watched a crowd of students on campus protest the evils of globalization — capitalism, corporations, the IMF and the WTO. A young woman grabbed the microphone and shouted to the crowd, “Who made your T-shirt?” Was it a child in India living in poverty for Nike’s profit? The economist began to wonder what it meant to be global, but unlike me a generation earlier, she traveled the world to investigate. Six years later, she published a book about the people, politics and markets that created her cotton T-shirt.

This is the story of globalization — the story of real people on three continents, woven together with economic and political lessons, that addresses the sometimes surprising winners and losers in the global economy. Using a simple product, the story shows that free markets aren’t always free, that victims are sometimes beneficiaries, and that nothing about globalization is simple. This book is both a good read and informative text, as well as a key resource for Fuqua’s Global Institute, August 2007.

© Reviewer: Meg Trauner & Ford Library – Fuqua School of Business. All rights reserved.