Apple recently canceled the launch of the latest iPhone model in its Chinese retail stores, but that doesn’t stop consumers from wanting to buy it—even though consumers say they don’t think it performs much better than the most recent model, and the voice-activated Siri feature in the iPhone 4S does not work in Chinese, China Daily reported. Monitor’s Huang Yu told the newspaper that a niche group of consumers want luxury products like the iPhone 4S as a status symbol. “The niche group becomes a large number of people in China, given the country’s large population,” he added.

Diana McLain Smith, the Chief Executive Partner at New Profit Inc., and a former Monitor partner, has published a new book, Elephant in the Room: How Relationships Make or Break the Success of Leaders and Organizations.

Because the Chinese government has tightened credit policies, small businesses are relying more on private moneylenders, media reports have noted. The problem has become notable in the city of Wenzhou, in the prosperous Zhejiang province, one of the first cities to develop a private sector economy in the wake of the country’s 1978 economic reforms. One of the big questions is how far the problems experienced in Wenzhou are indicative of a generalized funding crisis in China.

Both government leaders and the market have important roles to play in regional clusters that breed innovation, economic development and growth, the Economist Intelligence Unit reports. Among the experts interviewed for this research paper is Pedro Arboleda, a partner at Monitor Group. Arboleda relates the South Korean government’s successful efforts in the late 1990s to create an environment that encouraged small businesses to start in Seoul to boost economic growth after the Asian financial crisis led to the decline of several large conglomerates.

The e-commerce industry was projected to surpass 750 billion yuan (US$118 billion) in gross merchandise value in 2011. This projection, along with similar projections of growth in middle-class spending on high-end goods in the next five years, is enticing more multi-brand retailers and brands themselves to invest in e-commerce platforms specifically for the China market. With dozens of luxury-focused online retailers to choose from, many of which are very well capitalized, the industry may be in dire need of a shakeout. Torsten Stocker, a partner at Monitor, recently told Jing Daily that the relative chaos of the market indicates to him that “luxury e-commerce in China is more on a natural evolution path, where new concepts and ideas are still being tested, and where it is still unclear what will work for which brand.”

Defense spending cuts being debated in Washington are likely to be deeper than expected if history is a guide, write Ajay Patel, president of Monitor National Security, and retired U.S. Navy Rear Admiral Ben Wachendorf, in an article for the website AOL Defense.

The Center for Health Market Innovations, a nonprofit organization funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation, published an interview with Monitor’s Mike Kubzansky about “Promise and Progress,” the firm’s recent report on market-based solutions to poverty in Africa. Kubzansky explains that while there are a number of health care programs working on the continent, market-based solutions to health problems are still in the early stages of development.

Kyu-seok Oh, a former consultant at Monitor in South Korea who spent a decade with the firm, in December 2011 was named president at Daelim Industrial to oversee the company’s management support division. His promotion was one of three high-profile appointments of former Monitor consultants in the top ranks of South Korean companies noted by the country’s mainstream media.

In a review of Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress—and a Plan to Stop It, by Monitor Talent member Lawrence Lessig, The New York Times notes that Lessig makes a strong case to reform the U.S. political system by creating an alternative campaign financing mechanism. The reviewer also notes that it will take more than reforming campaign finance mechanisms to create a political sphere void of powerful special interests.

The coastal province of Ninh Thuan in Vietnam has hired two consulting companies, including Monitor Group, to plan a strategy for economic growth in four sectors: clean energy, tourism, food and beverage production, and education.