Almost two years ago, HBS professor Michael Y. Yoshino embarked on a study in Southeast Asia. Little did he know the twists and turns the region - and his research - would take.

With Southeast Asia's economy booming, Yoshino, an expert in global strategy and management, set out to investigate the success of several major corporations in the region. In the past decade or earlier, he notes, a number of large "corporate groups" gained prominence, many family-owned and some run by HBS graduates. Yoshino sought to understand why these companies were so successful while others in the same thriving economic environment were not. What were their management practices and strategies?

Yoshino and doctoral student Robert Pekkanen journeyed to Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines, interviewing more than one hundred executives at a dozen companies. Everyone, says Yoshino, was extremely optimistic. Intrigued by their findings, Yoshino and Pekkanen planned to write a book, the first draft to be completed last summer.

Then the financial crisis struck, plunging Asia - and Yoshino's project - into turmoil. The situation threw hundreds of hours of interviews and research into question. "When we heard the news, my research associate and I just looked at each other and shook our heads," Yoshino recalls.

After the dust settled a bit, Yoshino decided that the crisis presented an interesting twist. Some companies, he noted, appeared to be surviving much better than others. As they adapted, others "remained in total chaos, and one or two might even disappear." So he shifted the study's focus and is now examining how the various companies are adjusting to the crisis, what lessons they learned, and what changes they are going to make in their management strategy and systems. To date, Yoshino reports, "We are really seeing which are the outstanding companies versus those that succeeded simply because of the economy."

by Anne Kavanagh (Courtesy Harvard Business School Global Ventures)

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