Transforming Mental Models on Emerging Markets

Economic growth in the Western world increasingly depends on meaningful engagement with emerging markets, such as Brazil, China, India, South Africa, and Turkey. Business schools are responding in their research and curriculums with increased attention to these markets. However, to understand and leverage these opportunities for teaching and learning, it is apparent that students and executives require a major transformation of their mental models, not simply incremental adjustments or extensions. Institutional economics can help prospective and established managers recognize the role of formal and informal institutions and enable them to work around the “institutional voids” in emerging markets (Khanna & Palepu, 2010). We draw on this framework to identify critical shifts in mental models required for managing effectively in emerging markets and suggest core elements of the management learning process required to accomplish such a change.