Question 11.  

The broadening set of interdependent relationships among people from different parts of the world is known as __________.

Answer

globalizationoffshoring

franchisingoutsourcing

4 points   

Question 21.  

Companies often expand their business internationally in response to:

Answer

increased import restrictions in their domestic markets.competitive international advantages gained by their competitors.increased export restrictions in their domestic markets.a decrease in domestic competition.

4 points   

Question 31.  

Flower producers from Ecuador, Israel, and New Zealand all compete for sales in the same American markets. This is due primarily to:

Answer

more effective domestic production techniques.

advances in communications.

advances in transportation.

cross-national cooperation in fighting insects that harm plants.

4 points   

Question 41.  

Which of the following describes one of the conditions under which the major problems of cultural collision arise in international business?

Save and Submit

Answer

When a company's employees encounter distress because of difficulty in accepting or adjusting to foreign behaviorsWhen employees disagree on the style of art for decorating the office

When local people have no expectation that foreigners should adjust to their culture

When companies understand and adjust to the national cultures in which they do business

4 points   

Question 51.  

When two countries are very culturally close:

Answer

communications between them need not be translated.there is little chance of cultural friction.

foreigners and domestic citizens are treated differently.a company may overlook important subtleties.

4 points   

Question 61.  

Safe work environments motivate __________; challenges motivate __________.

Answer

individualists; collectivistscollectivists; individualistsnon-fatalists; fatalists

materialists; non-materialists

4 points   

Question 71.  

The same automobile company produces Fiats and Ferraris. The company built an engine plant in China with low production costs for Fiats, but not Ferraris. The probable reason is that:

Answer

Fiat competes mainly on a focus strategy, whereas Ferrari competes mainly on a mass-market strategy.Fiat competes mainly on a mass-market strategy, whereas Ferrari competes mainly on a focus strategy.Ferrari faces global competitors in China, whereas Fiat competes in China mainly against Chinese competitors.although Ferrari did not build an engine plant, it will use the same Fiat engines in its models.

4 points   

Question 81.  

In the case on Carnival Cruise Lines in Chapter 1, we saw that cruise lines pay little or no taxes because:

Answer

of international tax treaties.

they take advantage of different taxation and employment laws in foreign countries.international law does not apply in noncoastal areas of the oceans.they use focus strategies.

4 points   

Question 91.  

The process of shifting production from a domestic to a foreign location is known as __________.

Answer

offshoring

outsourcing

licensing

joint venturing

4 points   

Question 101.  

Cultural change imposed by an alien culture is called __________.

Answer

ethnocentricity

cultural imperialismcollectivism

creolization

4 points   

Question 111.  

Summarize the positive and negative aspects of offshoring, and state whether you support or are against offshoring and why. Include an experience that you or someone you know has had in which offshoring affected them positively/negatively.

In a changing global economy all companies want to get, keep, maintain their market shares and never stop broadening their capabilities. Of course, competitions of markets among them will rise higher than ever. So, a company will not give up finding solutions to better live in its business environment by improving product , service quality; and other things that have positive effects on its customers, markets. The improvement must go alongside cheaper and better products. The cheaper, better products just can be produced by a company which can save costs.

And one of ways to save costs that is offshoring. What is Offshoring? Offshoring is the process of shifting production to a foreign country. Offshoring is a good measure to operate more economically. There are many contrary comments around offshoring: is it good or bad?

To clarify the question, let’s take a look at positive and negative aspects of offshoring as followings.

Positive aspects:

- Cost savings: company often find cheaper labors, cheap material in developing countries. Take advantage of using those the company can save a lot of money, and they use saved money for improving quality of product and service. Finally, cheaper product can be launched to satisfy customers’ demands.

- Using offshoring measure, a company sets its process of production in a foreign country where It can raise competitive advantages through penetrating deeper into current markets and broadening to new markets in neighboring areas (or countries), with purposes to protect current market shares.

- Creating more jobs: a developing country can solve unemployment problems when it receives a foreign country’s investment. Labor force can have jobs, and their standard of life will be improved.

- Transferring technologies: not only is knowledge of modern technologies advanced, but skills and experiences of working also are able to catch up with the world.

Negative aspects:

- Nothing can guarantee the same price between offshored product and domestically produced one. Offshoring will not be able to reduce the price of product. For instance, Adidas applies offshoring in my country Vietnam, but the price of its products is not cheap at all and has the same price as its foreign products.

- Creating unemployment: foreign companies bring low-value jobs to developing countries with an aim taking advantages of cheap labors. But, the consequence they make to their home countries is unemployment in low-level worker class, they do not have jobs anymore because of their jobs brought to another country, and just remaining high-value jobs that they can not qualify for. That is one of reasons why unemployment rates are increasing among EU countries.

- Transferring out of date technologies: foreign companies are always afraid of technologies being robbed by host-country. So, they never transfer modern technologies to developing countries. Maybe that approach can be a way to save costs in production process.

That’s the positive and negative aspects of offshoring. And, I think that offshoring is really good for developing countries. Benefit is shared mutually between two parties, every party has its own way to exploit that benefit. I totally support the offshoring because my country Vietnam has already received many investments from all over the world, foreign companies come to my country with target to create job opportunities, better working environments for Vietnamese people. The more jobs they create, the better life people can have.

Technologies that they are transferring to the country are fairly modern and they have helped Vietnamese engineers a lot in coming up with the world’s technology, improving experiences and skills of working for them. For instance, Intel technology corporation built a very big factory producing PC chips, they trained and improved knowledge on technologies for employees. That’s very good.

I have a friend who is really good at field of informatics technology, he just wants to work outdoor or self-employed. Moreover, he really hates working in narrow environment or feel not free about time. He wants to work in flexible timetable, can bring work anywhere to perform it. According to those features about him we can know that he is a freelancer. Although demand in designing programs is enough for him to do, he likes working with foreign companies more than. Because he wants to challenge himself and contact to international environment, he often takes projects form foreign companies. As a result, he not only satisfies himself his desire to work with foreign partners in projects, but he also receives belief from foreign companies for the well-done works. As assume that If there were not offshoring, how would my friend work with foreign companies? And how could he satisfy his desire. No, he could not.

Generally, I suppose that the offshoring is really good for a company want to save costs, reduce price of products and with a target to create a better working environment for the country it wants to come. On the other hand, the offshoring help developing countries solve unemployment situation, create jobs for idle men. Offshoring can bring benefit to a country and lift borders of countries.

John D. Daniels, Lee H. Radebaugh, Daniel P. Sullivan (2009). International Business

– Environments and Operations. Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, New Jersey, 07458. Page 57-59

Question 12

 

Visit General Electric’s corporate website: www.ge.com. In the company’s citizenship section, research a GE produced report on one of its global initiatives. Summarize in detail the project’s initiative. Discuss the potential positive and negative effects of the GE project on both GE and on the country in which it is located. You are expected to use additional references to help you answer the questions (APA format is required).

GE’s mission in Vietnam ( Partnering for Growth in Vietnam)

GE is one of the first American enterprises coming to Vietnam for investment operations, with strategy vision is to lead the target market in Vietnam. The GE’main purpose is to help consolidate the relationships between Vietnam and USA on economic, political operations; also commercial investments. Moreover, the company expects to make new opportunities and wider perceptions about the world’s technologies, standards in working environment for Vietnamese workforces. Therefor, the government of Vietnam is really welcome to GE’ arrival and expect to build a stable, beneficial connection mutually. A connection can help two parties develop and contribute their capabilities to local communities.

In all operations usually consist of positive effects and negative effects. GE in Vietnam is not exceptional; GE will have good influences on economic issues, people, culture, law, environment. No company can be sure that it never brings negative effects to a country or a community where it works. Everything will be alright in first times, but who knows where there should be something bad happening in the future. So , I want to clarify this topic with some positive effects and negative effects that GE and Vietnam are experiencing this time.

Positive effects:

- GE is enhancing Vietnam’s image to the world, and it plays a big role to building trust to foreign investors that Vietnam is a reliable, good destination.

- The company also takes part in training and improving local workforces, creating jobs opportunities in high technology environment with goal to make Vietnam Technologies get better, more modern.

- The standards of environment, safety labor, working conditions, workers’health are always priorities in GE’s business policies. GE brings standard EHS ( Environment, Health, Safety) to Vietnam with an aim establishing safe working environments, professional skills, awareness of safety for domestic contractors and suppliers.

Negative effects:

- GE is a multinational corporation with competitive capability that is very strong, stronger than any companies in the same industry in Vietnam. A market that GE occupies almost totally, no company can develop and compete with it. This thing limited development of companies in the industry, decreases market shares and belief of Vietnamese people on domestic companies while GE is dominant one.

- Definitely, GE will always be supported on taxation by Vietnam Government, components of its products levied less than other companies. And this advantage accidentally makes imbalance in competition environment between it and others. Moreover, under range of influence of GE that Vietnam sometimes have to accept unexpected negotiations with GE on commercial, political issues. That is competitive advantage of multinational companies maybe have upon operating businesses in host country.

- Another negative effect might happen when GE no longer receives support from Government and business environment changes the ways in which GE is pursuing to monitor its performance. And when it recognizes another potential from some country where greets it and gives many good policies. GE will definitely turn away from Vietnam and say goodbye, but the thing remains that is unemployment. Vietnamese workers of GE have to find other places to work, spend much time to adapt themselves in new environments. Who will be responsible for that situation, GE or Vietnam? The answer is Vietnamese workers.

Generally, we can summarize that multinational companies come to a country for their own goal is profit, to make profit they have to create good relationships with that country where they will spend money, time, capabilities for doing their promises: creating jobs, improving host country’s technologies, consolidating natural environment, increasing labor income, performing humanitarian activities, supporting local communities… those things sound great especially for developing countries like Vietnam. Of course, Vietnam government has to give advantageous conditions , release commercial restrictions to help MNCs manage their business operations easily. Although GE night have negative effects to domestic companies and workforce, there is no denying that Vietnam is receiving more than it can give to GE. Benefits two parties have should be maintained and they both have to support each other to keep stable relationship and present cooperation for development in the future.

GE, stories, Partnering for Growth in Vietnam (2010).

Retrieved from http://citizenship.geblogs.com/partnering-for-growth-in-vietnam/

GE, Raising Our Standards, Growing our business ( July 4 2010).

Retrieved from http://www.gecitizenship.com/raising-our-standards-growing-our-business/

GE, reporting, Sustainable Growth ( 2010 citizenship report)

Retrieved from http://files.gecitizenship.com.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/ge_2010_citizenship_report.pdf