Course Materials


Many of the cases authored and coauthored by FG are included in the New Financial Instruments: Horizons for Risk Management book. Additional cases are available through The Center for Global Business Studies.

These cases include:
  • Korean Won (A&B)
  • Penn Lubricant
  • Dana Pharmaceuticals
  • CANAM Construction and Engineering Co.
  • Dow Asiana
  • Hong Kong – Economic Outlook and Country Risk Assessment
All cases are copyrighted by the William A. Schreyer Center for Global Business Studies, Smeal School of Business at Penn State.
Session Overview: Worldwide, CEOs and senior managers need to prepare their industries for Global Tectonics--the process by which developing trends in technology, nature, and society slowly revolutionize the business environment of the future. Much like the earth’s tectonic plates, global trends shift unnoticed as they transform our industrial and societal topography. Business executives easily and often overlook such gradual developments — that is until a major quake shakes their corporate foundations.

We have identified twelve global trends that will present the most formidable challenges to world business leaders in the next thirty years. Developments in areas such as demography, infectious disease, resource degradation, economic integration, nano and information technologies, international conflict, and governance will determine corporate strategy. Whether these tectonic shifts put industries through minor tremors or major earthquakes will depend on how businesses have prepared for imminent change. Corporations have both the ability and the responsibility to foresee, to understand, and to adjust to these Every business, regardless of its size or industry, must view day-to-day operations in light of these global developments. Our report and presentations facilitate this type of analysis by clearly outlining global trends and their potential impact on international business. The evolution of global tectonics will be pivotal in CEOs’ decision-making processes, now and decades into the future.