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I have recently been listening to Clay Christensen (Harvard Business School) describe his idea of disruptive innovation.  He calls it a theory and has some amazing examples from the steel and auto industry, tech examples and even education.  The definition below comes from Christensen’s website which I highly recommend. “Disruptive innovation, a term of art […]

An indelible image in my mind while growing up in northern Canada was of grown men sleeping in our town’s Greyhound bus station with no place to go and nothing to eat.  Years later while living in tropical Brazil our family saw poverty as we had never seen it before.  As I have traveled the

We have written some thoughts in recent blogs about ethics, corruption and bribery.  Because IBEC serves businesses in countries that are the most corrupt in the world (see www.transparency.org), we hear stories like this from time to time.  This story gives a glimpse of what it is like to make ethical decisions in the real-life

On Dec 29, 2014 I wrote about being on the lookout for that big opportunity, something retired Harvard Business School professor John Kotter calls The Big Opportunity (TBO).  It is a window into a winning future that is realistic, emotionally compelling and memorable.  In business it can be new markets, advances in technology, new products,

  Last week I proposed the Noonan definition of a bribe as “an inducement improperly influencing the performance of a public function meant to be gratuitously exercised” (The History of Bribery). That definition then begs the question of what is proper and improper.  Considering biblical culture and law, our own culture and law and the host culture

To pay a bribe or not to pay a bribe? Is that really a question? Today I will expand on an important issue that I began in my February 1, 2015 blog, Ethics and integrity in cross cultural business. In it I referred to a rather lengthy document on the subject of ethics and integrity in

In recent months I have been in on several conversations with the owners of overseas kingdom business start ups who were discouraged – who were ready to give up.  It is not easy to know if they need encouragement, or if they need a key resource they currently lack, or if they legitimately need to

I enjoy reading the blogs of Paul Sohn, and the following can be found in its entirety in his blog, God and Guinness: The Missional Drink that Changed the World. I am quoting most of Sohn’s thoughts here with some modifications, not as an advocate of the Guinness drink, but as an example of what businesses can

“Be wise and give serious thought to the way you live.”  (King Solomon in Proverbs 23:19) The football season is over for another year but not without its accusations of cheating, scandal and ethical challenges.  Such is true of all of life and especially in doing business internationally and cross culturally. Doing business ethically between

Some people find it confusing to read about socially conscious business, social entrepreneurship or values-driven business. Isn’t business just business – driven by profit margins acceptable to shareholders?  What’s all this talk of values, social impact and community development? For the past decade or so it has become increasingly popular to talk about social purposes,