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Business Knowledge for Emerging Economies
TIME to GROW WDI Mix of Funding, Patience Results in Research Impact
WDI
has a distinct approach to knowledge creation and influencing practice. The Institute’s approach is to develop ideas that
will have significant impacts on emerging market economies at both the macro level and for managers operating firms in those economies. A typical set of research ideas goes through a sort of life cycle, WDI Executive Director Robert Kennedy said. Whereas most academic organizations are focused on developing academic pieces for peer review journals, Kennedy said WDI focuses on generating and nurturing ideas — sometimes over several years — that eventually will have a high impact on management practice. This “life cycle” has happened with the Globalization of Services (GoS) Research Initiative, led by Kennedy. The same process is now taking place for WDI’s Healthcare Research Initiative, led by Prashant Yadav. It also has been successful with the Base of the Pyramid (BoP) Research Initiative, under the direction of WDI Senior Research Fellow Ted London.
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