From the monthly archives:

July 2013

Debate on the future of Europe

July 31, 2013

The European Year of Citizens 2013 is dedicated to the rights that come with EU citizenship. Over the year, the European Union encourages dialogue between all levels of government, civil society and business at events and conferences around Europe to discuss those EU rights and build a vision of how the EU should be in […]

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Frontier economies overtake the emerging markets

July 30, 2013

Today the Economist published statistics showing that stock markets in the emerging markets have been overtaken by the frontier economies. The era of hyper growth in emerging economies may have reached its peak as these countries mature and overall have reached a higher standard of development. The most accelerated growth in the world is now […]

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The theory of Disruptive Innovation

July 25, 2013

In the video below, from a lecture at Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford in England, Clayton Christensen explains his theory of disruption, drawing on examples of innovations occurring in the steel industry and from leading companies such as Toyota, Sony and Walmart. Christensen explores how the theory can explain why the economies […]

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Detroit. Michigan’s Motor City, Goes Bankrupt

July 20, 2013

The city of Detroit, that we have written about before on this blog, has now gone bankrupt. The city filed the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history on Thursday July 18th, and it is most likely also the largest municipal bankruptcy in history, globally. The bankruptcy was forced by the Governor of Michigan, as a […]

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The Ascent of Money

July 18, 2013

Some years ago, the Harvard based historian Niall Ferguson made a four part documentary for BBC on the history of money. In the series Ferguson follows the development of currency to tell the human story behind the evolution of finance, from its origins in ancient Mesopotamia to the latest upheavals on what he calls Planet […]

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How real is the Rise of Africa?

July 16, 2013

Sub-Saharan Africa has made huge leaps in the last decade. Malaria deaths in some of the worst-affected countries have declined by 30% and HIV infections by up to 74%. Life expectancy across Africa has increased by about 10% and child mortality rates in most African countries have been falling steeply. A booming economy has made […]

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High growth and the transformation of African cities

July 12, 2013

Today my friend and colleague Hokan Pettersson sent me a link to an article in The Atlantic, an American literary and cultural commentary magazine, about how sub-Saharan Africa´s growth is creating vast urbanized areas across the continent. The Atlantic is an interesting magazine, having achieved profitability through going digital and bravely opening up a website […]

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Meeting Obama and Delivering on Africa´s Promise

July 9, 2013

‘‘In a world where it seems no-one agrees on anything, a world where politics divides, religion divides, and race and even cultural borders seem to divide, dignity is something that everyone can agree on." – Global Dignity Day founders (HRH Crown Prince Haakon, John Hope Bryant and Prof. Pekka Himanen) On Saturday, on his first […]

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The Economist on Luxury Goods

July 6, 2013

The International University of Monaco, where I teach innovation management to the MBA class, has become a leading academic institution in undergraduate and masters level education on luxury brand management. Increasingly larger number of students are looking to make careers in this field. As long as there has been people, there has been luxury goods. […]

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How to make efficient strategic decisions

July 3, 2013

For a long time, specialists have developed models or theories in order to analyse the strategic environment of a company and make the good decisions in this context. These theories are often based on common principles, as for example the types of criteria used to assess the company position in its environment. Plenty of consulting […]

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