Companies introducing a brand in China face special naming challenges because of the complexity of Chinese characters and pronunciations. The authors show four different approaches companies can take, favoring sound or meaning similarities, and describe the pros and cons of each.

Feeling strapped for time? Try giving a few hours away by helping someone else. Surprising new research shows that doing so makes people feel that they have more time, not less.

Western corporations seem to be taking for granted the favorable taxation policies they've enjoyed for the past 30 years. But companies that are hoarding cash should keep in mind that those policies could change. Their big reserves may soon prove irresistible to governments that are strapped for funds.

Every country's economy is a mix, but usually one group--producers or consumers--gets favored through tax breaks or subsidies. China and the U.S. stand at opposite extremes. If the U.S. economy is to get stronger, it should emulate Germany, which has a more balanced set of economic policies. Tariffs are high enough to protect German producers from Asian rivals but low enough to prevent them from becoming complacent. Taxes on fossil fuels go to support R&D in value-added manufacturing and clean energy sectors.

As the global economy continues to sputter, new businesses--and the jobs they create--are more important than ever. Here's a visual look at the factors in various countries that affect the entrepreneurial climate.

The case describes the phenomenal growth of Facebook, a social networking site launched in 2004, which had reached approximately 1 billion members by 2012. The case provides an overarching picture of the company's growth over the last eight years, from its founding to present day global expansion, covering the competitive landscape, the challenges it has faced along the way (including controversy over its privacy policy), its growth strategy and product development, marketing, and organizational challenges.

A small US-based crowdsourcing platform illustrates the entrepreneurial challenges in a new 'industry' - the crowdsourcing industry. The firm's president founded and manages a virtual firm, which he launched even before the term crowdsourcing was coined. He has chosen to focus his firm, initially, on selling labor services to the American real estate market. Now that he has successfully built a network of reliable providers and repeat clients, his dilemma is how to grow his firm.

Healthware, a digital communication agency specializing in healthcare, is based in Salerno Italy. The firm has 72 employees in two countries as well as clients in 14 countries. The case illustrates the location trade-offs of operating - and growing - a global digital company far from the epicenter of Italian business. The theme is universal. Once the firm is far from a nation's epicenter, a dynamism may be absent but the advantages are quite tangible: lower costs and employee stability. This teaching case is based on actual companies, people, and events, though some details have been dramatized or disguised.

In 2005, a successful Peruvian-based software company was seeking to grow by exporting its software products. The case illustrates the entrepreneurial challenges in selling software products from a developing nation that is not on the forefront of the technology world. LOLIMSA has successfully grown its market into several Latin countries outside of Peru. The firm is considering trying to enter the lucrative American market for the second time, but knows that the investment in market entry is substantial.

While uncertainty is rampant in today's economy, the authors argue that one thing is clear: public policy to increase innovation is generally not working, and this is due largely to confusion between the terms 'invention' and 'innovation'. While the terms are often used interchangeably, there are important differences in definition, intent and process. They describe these differences and argue that the focus must switch to a particular type of innovation: user-driven innovation. This type of innovation enables users to do something that they could not have done before and can also lower costs for users. They explain how to 'refresh' innovation policy to embrace user driven innovation, putting an end to inventors creating inventions that nobody really wants.

The global financial crisis has caused public trust in institutions to fall to its lowest level in history. The authors begin by defining the three elements of the 'trust failure' that has taken place, and then present six strategies for repairing trust. These include increasing external regulation, changing the way boards function and fostering a culture change. They end by warning that a number of reforms have been put in place to restore institutional trust, but the jury is still out as to whether they will 'stick' over time.

Throughout history, sudden insights across industries and disciplines have had one thing in common: they tend to come at strange times and places, and they tend to happen after an intense, prolonged struggle with a particular problem, followed by a break. The author describes the importance of the break or 'broken pattern' in our day, showing that it comes in two types: breaks that we make and breaks that we take. In both cases, breaks enable us to think differently - and more resourcefully, and those who aspire to creative thinking should make them a regular habit. He provides three approaches to daily breaks: meditation, 'pulsing' and daydreaming walks, all of which enable you to stop looking for 'the answer' - and find it.

Wealthy people don't just have better toys; they have better nutrition and better medical care, more free time and more meaningful labour-more of just about every ingredient in the recipe for a happy life. And yet research consistently shows that they aren't much happier than those who have less. If money can buy happiness, then why doesn't it? The authors argue that five principles apply to the money/happiness equation, including 'buy experiences instead of things' and 'help others instead of yourself'. In the end, they show that money can buy many of the things that make us happy; and if it doesn't, the fault is ours.

New entrepreneurs are in a tough spot: sixty-five per cent of seed-round startups in North America never make it to the next level of funding, and just 12 per cent end up successfully delivering a product or service. Why even try? "Because my idea is better than all the others, and the numbers don't apply to me." We all have such 'necessary illusions' in our minds, says the author. Dangerous delusions, on the other hand, are just that. The question is, how to distinguish between necessary illusions and dangerous delusions? He argues that the answer is to become an experimentalist about one's own life and business, which forces you to take an outsider's view of it.

Frugal innovation' is a new style of innovation that is popular in India and other countries in the global south, where citizens face global challenges such as poverty and climate change with limited resources. The solutions it puts forth must be low-cost, robust and easy to use, and have the potential to be targeted at large populations. However, solutions tend to be developed and used locally, and scaling local innovations presents some key challenges. The authors describe how to go about creating a 'hybrid model' for scaling an innovation, which entails attention to five baseline factors: cost, active demand, a sustainable business model, outcome demonstration and effective leadership.

In an age of dwindling resources, our excessive economic paradigm cannot possibly survive. The author argues that it is time to stop seeing the world as it is, and to begin to see it as it could be. But before this can happen, we must change our notion of what constitutes success. He describes what would be involved in a 'renaissance of human values', touching on our nine core needs as humans and the roles of design and ecology. We will build a new civilization, he says, the way we built the current one: with incentives, social rewards and new ways of meeting our needs.

When it comes to innovative product and service design, quantitative, data-driven methods often lack the design insight and texture that inspires new ways forward. Meanwhile, qualitative behavioral and emotions-based research provides invaluable inspiration for human-centered designers, but the insights unveiled can be fragile if they are not backed by hard numbers. Integrating quantitative research methods with qualitatively methods is a powerful new approach that the author and his colleagues have dubbed 'hybrid insights'. In this article he shows how hybrid insights out-perform conventional market research tools in unveiling significant early-adopter segments

What could a family-run pig farm in France have to teach mainstream business folk about profit, market share and shareholder value? As it turns out, plenty. The author describes the 'artisan's approach' to value creation and the three ways that it differs from the traditional growth-obsessed firm. For one, instead of pursuing scale, artisans remain at a fixed size - but they exert control over the whole process, from end to end, achieving 'holism' over scale. In the end, she shows that the engine that keeps artisans running has a good chance of outlasting faster-burning models, and as such, it presents a working alternative worth considering.

The former Medtronic CEO and current Professor of Management Practice at Harvard describes the importance of following your True North and explains why he refers to the past 10 years as "leadership's lost decade". He describes five types of leaders that often lose sight of their True North and get derailed. He also talks about the importance of leading an "integrated life" and shows that authentic leadership entails a transition from 'I' to 'we'.

A few decades ago, Prada believed that its future depended on gaining market share through acquisitions in Western Europe and the United States. Today, however, it remains mostly focused on its core brands--Prada and Miu Miu--and the emerging markets. China alone now accounts for 22% of company revenue. Meanwhile, Prada has prospered, retaining its independence in an industry increasingly dominated by luxury conglomerates. According to Bertelli, what makes the difference is Prada's organizational culture. Despite all the changes and challenges the company has faced, the essential principles and values that guide managers' decisions and inform their communications with one another and with stakeholders have remained remarkably constant. The author illuminates the six Prada principles: control through transparency; go where the risk is; give respect to get performance; sell only your own designs; obsess over details; and give young managers real responsibilities. Bertelli describes himself as "a great fan of young people," especially those who experience the world. Right now that means Africa, which he believes will be a huge market in 10 or 15 years.