Being Global: How to Think, Act, and Lead in a Transformed World by Ángel Cabrera Gregory Unruh

Author:Ángel Cabrera, Gregory Unruh
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781422183243
Publisher: Harvard Business Review Press

Bridging Developing Opportunities Back to Developed Markets

McDonald's and Walmart are both big firms tapping into big markets, but convergence is not a one-way phenomenon. Most examples of convergence are coming from developed world products, services, or companies moving to the developing world, but over time the connections made between developed-world firms and their developing-world partners and subsidiaries are allowing information to flow back. One Laptop per Child may have stumbled for its lack of a global mindset, but the innovations it has pursued in the effort to create a low-cost laptop for the developing world have made Intel and other microchip and computer manufacturers aware of the unmet demand for such a product in developed markets. There is a straight line between the XO and the netbook, which became the fastest-growing category of the laptop market worldwide, and ultimately the tablet computer.

Global entrepreneurs based in developing economies may tap into convergence by acting as “bridgers” to capitalize on the insights learned in developing markets. Our Thunderbird colleagues Nathan Washburn and Tom Hunsaker argue that bridgers identify and test innovations in emerging markets that they can apply and then bring back to developed economies. It was a bridger at Intel who pursued an effort to develop a netbook powered by an Intel chip, and a bridger at GE who came up with the idea for a portable ultrasound machine for developing markets.9 (See “Bridgers and Boundary Spanners.”)

Bridgers and Boundary Spanners

Thunderbird scholars Nathan Washburn and Tom Hunsaker have coined the phrase “global bridger” to describe a person who brings lessons and innovations from offices or subsidiaries in developing countries back to headquarters. In their research of multinationals operating in emerging markets, they have identified a type of manager who has the global social capital to establish and maintain trusting relationships in subsidiaries and at headquarters, and who has the global intellectual capital to understand the reality of the emerging markets and identify new sources of value to bring back home.a

Management scholars normally refer to this crucial role of creating value across borders as “boundary spanning,” though the focus of boundary spanning is more multidirectional. Our colleague Andreas Schötter has studied the often-tense relationships between headquarters and subsidiaries in multinational organizations. His work, done in collaboration with Paul Beamish from the University of Ontario, defines boundary spanners as managers who advocate for the best solution to meet the needs of both sides. Boundary spanners “push back toward headquarters when an initiative does not make sense for a subsidiary or the company overall. But they also push back toward subsidiaries when a corporate intitiative has the potential to make the network stronger.”b

To be effective, boundary spanners must possess a high level of functional knowledge and legitimacy in their organizations. But equally importantly, they must have a high level of social capital at headquarters and at the subsidiary level. “They have networks. People know and trust them at both levels,” Schötter says. Multinational organizations need bridgers and boundary spanners as economic power shifts east toward emerging markets such as India, China, and Indonesia.

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