Speaker: Gerard van Grinsven, President & CEO, West Bloomfield Hospital

Michigan's turbulent economy dominates water cooler conversations in Metro Detroit and around the state. The economic anxiety today has a dramatic impact on our businesses and personal finances.

Join News/Talk 760 WJR's Paul W. Smith as he moderates our panel of experts who will discuss our economy and how it affects your business and personal investment decisions.

World Languages Day is a free, all-day conference for high school students, teachers, and parents. Participants can choose from a wide variety of sessions on language, culture, globalization, and general information about Michigan State University.

The Honorable Tom Ridge.

The inextricable link between security and prosperity in a progressively interdependent world has generated enormous political and economic benefits but also consequent challenges. As the interdependence grows, so grows the vulnerability. Terrorism, natural disasters, criminal acts, vendor issues, accidents and geopolitical influences can have debilitating effects on economies and thus have put issues such as supply chain security, cross-border collaborations and security investment at the forefront of every proactive business and government agenda.

Secretary Ridge, the nation's first secretary of Homeland Security and former governor Pennsylvania, will share his views of today's risk-centric environment and how to minimize those risks in favor of greater resiliency and security across the globe.

The Global Business Club of Mid-Michigan focuses on global issues of interest to the mid-Michigan business community. In this role, the GB Club is dedicated to supporting global business growth of the State of Michigan and its diverse manufacturing and service organizations. The main activity of the GB Club is the luncheon speaker series.

The monthly GB Club luncheons provide outstanding speakers and relaxed networking opportunities. With extensive international experience, the speakers wrap personal insights around a practical and up-to-the-minute approach to conducting international trade. The luncheons are open to the general public. Typically, about 100 business executives, public policy makers, and academics attend each luncheon.

Dr. Tamer Cavusgil will give a seminar on the preliminary findings for a meta analysis of multinationality and firm performance. Much scholarly work has been devoted to studying the performance implications of multinationality (also referred to as international diversification). This presentation will report on a meta-analysis designed to reveal empirical generalizations from this vast body of evidence. While multinationality is found to be positively associated with overall firm performance, contextual analysis reveals even more interesting findings. Multinationality-performance relationship is found to be stronger for multinationals from European and Japanese multinationals. Firms in manufacturing industries benefit more from internationalization than firms in service industries. Bivariate results also indicate that multinationality-performance relationship is stronger for the period preceding 1980. Finally, the results indicate that multinationality positively affects performance during both the early and late stages of internationalization. Positive effects of multinationality are strongest for firms with moderate levels of internationalization.

Jim Leyland, Manager of the Detroit Tigers, and David Dombrowski, President, CEO, and General Manager of the Tigers, will speak.