Abstract

Sumantra Ghoshal is universally referred to as a management ‘guru’, suggesting that he was regarded as a great, original, and inspiring thinker. However, the other most significant aspect of his life and work was the amount of time and effort he spent engaging with corporate managers and with management practice. Ghoshal’s most famous book was Managing across Borders: The Transnational Solution, co-authored with Professor Chris Bartlett of Harvard. This article examines Ghoshal’s contributions in six sections: managing across borders—global strategy; managing across borders—the transnational; new managerial and organizational pathways; caring for the organization and the person; a critique of managerial education; grounds for ethical optimism: lessons from Ghoshal’s work.