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international business assignment questions

60 Exceptional International Business Topics To Score High

international business topics

International business is today one of the most eyed professions in the world. As businesses continue to invest globally, it becomes necessary to explore markets in other parts of the world. But i t is not easy to write a research paper for a high grade.  With that in mind, we explore global business topics to help you complete your business paper in no time.

What Is International Business?

It is an academic field that gives students an understanding of globalization in the different business management practices found worldwide. International business also prepares the students for graduate careers working abroad or in organizations engaged in business on a global scale.

How To Write International Business Topics

To outsmart your peers in such a paper, following the guidelines below in choosing a top-notch topic:

Have a topic that you have an interest in Avoiding picking narrow or broad-based topics Choose one that is based on the current affairs in the world of business Explore annual reports, periodicals, and news articles for unique topic ideas Ensure that the topic has sufficient sources

The structure of your topic will also determine whether it is viable or not. Reading previous international business topics will also give you an idea of coming up with a top-rated topic. However, we have 60 impressive ideas to jumpstart your international business paper.

Captivating International Business Topics

  • Why do most international companies prefer candidates with a Master’s degree?
  • The role of digitization in enhancing international businesses
  • How the coronavirus has made the international business a risky venture
  • Considerations when choosing to invest in developing countries
  • How e-commerce has made international business more accessible and manageable
  • Market segmentation as a factor in international business ventures

International Business Research Paper Topics For College Students

  • The impact of off-shore business accounts in combating corruption
  • How terrorism affects international businesses
  • The role of modern technologies in enhancing international businesses
  • What is the implication of the stock market exchange in international business?
  • How to strategically manage global business ventures in the technological age
  • How does cultural imperialism affect the effectiveness of the business in the international arena?

International Business Research Topics For High School Students

  • Discuss the impact of political upheavals in international business
  • Discuss the ethical dilemmas in conducting businesses globally
  • Why is Coca-Cola making inroads in the international world of business?
  • Evaluate the best HR management strategies for global businesses
  • Legislations and policies among countries that inhibit the performance of global companies
  • Does the presence of international companies on social media have an impact on their market?

Top Trending International Business Paper Topics

  • The role of different geographical locations in affecting consumer behavior
  • How can international companies’ best identify the needs of their global clients?
  • Conduct a consumer behavior analysis for international and local businesses
  • Factors that affect the hiring of employees for international companies
  • How language and a cultural understanding are critical tenets of international businesses
  • How employees from different cultures, race, and languages can collaborate on an international business venture

Business Topics For Research Paper in Digital Marketing

  • The role of digital marketing in flourishing international businesses
  • Designing business strategies for international digital marketing
  • The impact of search engine optimization in increasing the online presence of international businesses
  • What is the effectiveness of email marketing for international businesses
  • The rise of site, video, and game advertising in international business marketing techniques.
  • The aggressiveness of paid reviews or articles and hiring influencers in digital advertising

Current Topics in International Business

  • How are mergers and acquisitions transforming international businesses?
  • Supply chain management and logistics in international companies – a case study of the risks involved
  • Training and development strategies in developing economies
  • Risks associated with global banking systems
  • How are regional trade blocks instrumental in international businesses?
  • How the World Bank and IMF are essential in facilitating international business ventures

International Business Research Papers For Master’s Students

  • How organizational culture is essential in innovation management
  • Impacts of employee turnover and measures of addressing them
  • How intercultural differences affect consumption patterns
  • How emerging small and medium business enterprises can get funding
  • Analysis of the Coca-Cola marketing strategy
  • The running of international non-governmental organizations: A case study of Red Cross

International Business Topics For Projects

  • Marketing strategies that have made KFC a global brand
  • The role of corporate leadership in international companies
  • How governments impact international trade
  • Impact of pandemics on international businesses
  • Effects of corruption on global business ventures
  • The success of Amazon as a global internet company

Hot Global Business Topics

  • Penetration of Chinese investors in Africa
  • An overview of the horticulture Industry
  • The rise of mask production companies
  • Impacts of crypto-currencies on international businesses
  • Who assesses the quality of products in the international markets?
  • The effect of BREXIT on global markets

International Business Research Topics List

  • Impact of war on global businesses
  • Economic consequences of Trump’s administration
  • How does artificial intelligence take part in the global market
  • A case analysis of companies that have succeeded and failed in the global arena
  • How labeling the country of origin on products affects its sales
  • Impacts of legislation on tobacco and marijuana globally

If you need help with research paper , our expert writers are here for you. Order your paper online now and enjoy first-class business papers. Contact us with a “ do my research paper for me ” request for quality assistance. Get the best grades with our professional writers! 

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5 International Business Examples to Learn From

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  • 29 Jun 2021

The term international business refers to any business that operates across international borders. At its most basic, it includes the sale of goods and services between countries.

Yet, other forms of international business do exist. For example, a business that produces components or products overseas but sells them domestically can be considered an international business, as can an organization that outsources services, such as customer service, to locations where labor expenses are cheaper.

For most organizations, decisions around building, producing, and selling products or services are informed by many factors. Cost is an important one because businesses that primarily operate in developed markets, like the United States and Europe, can often source cheaper labor abroad.

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Other factors play a role in decision-making, too. For example, an organization that makes a conscious effort to become more sustainable may produce its product as close as possible to the end user to reduce greenhouse gas emissions related to transportation, even if it might result in higher labor costs. Likewise, a business may take pride in sourcing local labor to create jobs and support the economy.

Although international business can benefit the global economy, it also carries inherent risks. The fact that each country has its own government, regulations, inflation rates, and currency can complicate business models and must be weighed against the perceived benefits of operating internationally. Some of the most common challenges of international businesses include language and cultural barriers, currency exchange rates, and foreign politics and policies.

What Is a Successful International Business?

International businesses must have resilient, adaptable, communicative, and resourceful employees who know when to seize expansion opportunities. They need to have a deep understanding of international economics to anticipate how global markets will affect their bottom line and international marketing to effectively communicate their organization’s value to diverse audiences.

Are you interested in working with an international organization? Do you have plans and aspirations to take your business international? Here’s a look at five well-known international businesses that have successfully—and not so successfully—navigated the global market.

Examples of International Businesses

Apple Inc., founded by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne in the 1970s, is now considered one of the most influential international companies. Headquartered in the United States, Apple designs, develops, and sells electronics, software, streaming, and online services worldwide.

Apple opened its first international location in Tokyo, Japan, in 2003 after saturating the American market. Under Jobs, Apple touted ease-of-use, innovative design, and customer loyalty with the marketing slogan, “ Think Different ,” and it continues to use visionary strategic marketing and a tight ecosystem to overcome competition and attract creative audiences around the globe.

Apple not only sells products internationally but has supply chains from 43 countries that ship supplies to China for final production and assembly. By keeping a tight-knit and strong relationship with suppliers, strategic inventory, and a focus on sustainability, Apple stands as one of the world’s most successful companies.

2. Financial Times

The Financial Times is a formerly British daily newspaper that’s now owned by the Japanese holding company Nikkei. The Financial Times’ mission is to deliver unbiased, informed investment and economic information to empower individuals and companies to make secure investment decisions.

The Financial Times had a rocky start trying to break into the international market. Andrew Gilchrist, former managing director of the Financial Times , describes his experience at the publication in the online course Global Business .

During his tenure, the Financial Times prioritized entering the international market in India. Despite a large English-speaking population and strong government support, domestic journalism was considered culturally and legally suspect. In fact, the Financial Times was eventually tied up in legal knots because the local newspaper barons were able to challenge every move through the courts.

Eventually, the Financial Times’ attempt to go international in India led to an economic slowdown and sluggish company growth.

3. McDonald’s

Two brothers, Maurice and Richard McDonald, converted their drive-through barbecue restaurant in San Bernardino, California, into a burger and milkshake restaurant—now known as McDonald’s—in 1948.

The McDonald brothers focused on creating a better business system geared toward self-service and efficient and repeatable processes that relied on heating lamps instead of waiters. This model, known as “ Speedee ,” led to lower costs, cheaper products, and faster growth. It became the epitome of “fast food.”

Soon after, Ray Croc took McDonald’s a step further by bringing in franchisees and suppliers, leading to the creation of restaurants across the United States. McDonald’s model continued to expand, and, in 1967, the company opened locations in Canada and Puerto Rico .

McDonald’s has been internationally successful, thanks in large part to the consistency its business model allows. The fact that a Big Mac tastes the same regardless of which country you order it in is a testament to the company’s long history. Today, there are 38,000 restaurants in more than 120 countries.

4. Coca-Cola

Coca-Cola was created by pharmacist John Pemberton in 1886 at a soda fountain in Atlanta, Georgia. It was used as a tonic for common ailments due, in part, to the addition of cocaine and caffeine derived from the kola nut, which was a major ingredient at the time. (This was later removed from the recipe in 1903.)

Although popular at its inception, Coca-Cola became the company it is today because of the marketing and business leadership of Asa Griggs Candler and future investors, who dramatically increased sales and expanded syrup factory production into Canada.

Eventually, an independent bottle company licensed the rights to Coca-Cola’s syrup production and distribution, streamlining production and generating massive profits. Coca-Cola later remarketed for Germany, China, and India, and it’s now sold everywhere except Cuba and North Korea .

Coca-Cola currently has over 900 bottling and manufacturing facilities worldwide , many of which are in North America, Asia, and Africa.

H-E-B is a popular American grocery company with more than 340 stores in Texas and northeast Mexico. It was founded by Florence Butt in 1905 and expanded into Mexico in 1997.

The primary driver of international expansion wasn’t a desire to capture greater market share, but rather, a desire to gain access to foreign produce markets in warmer climates, from which the company could source produce during its domestic suppliers’ off-season in the northeastern United States.

Craig Boyan, president of H-E-B, explains in Global Business that, upon becoming an international business, H-E-B bought blueberries from Chile and Peru to sell year-round. Despite it being expensive to ship blueberry crates to Texas, this enabled the company to continue meeting its customers’ needs. Since then, production has increased with demand, especially in Mexico, which has an ideal climate to produce blueberries year-round. H-E-B now sources blueberries mostly from Mexico, making them more available and affordable for customers.

Global Business | Thrive in today's interconnected, global economy | Learn More

What Do You Study in International Business?

Many businesses succeed by expanding their markets, production operations, and supply chains internationally. But doing so requires savvy business leadership bolstered by economic knowledge, an understanding of markets, and the ability to learn political and cultural trends.

Business professionals who have a successful career in international business need various skills and expertise . Acquiring these combined skills employers are looking for, along with international business experience, can lead to long-term career success. Some of these important skills include:

  • Strong communication skills
  • Emotional intelligence
  • Cultural awareness
  • Knowledge of finance and accounting
  • Entrepreneurship skills
  • Understanding of global economics

Which HBS Online Business in Society Course is Right for You? | Download Your Free Flowchart

Why Study International Business?

Regardless of the role, professionals must stay current on all business practices. A global business education provides a wide range of opportunities to create and capture value for organizations. To bring this value to the workplace, individuals need to understand the economic, political, and social factors that drive change and how decisions affect global markets .

Strategists and entrepreneurs should learn about the broader macroeconomic and political landscape of their organizations to grow their business internationally and manage global teams. Professionals in heavily regulated industries can also use this knowledge to develop approaches and frameworks to navigate their complex industries.

If you’re considering joining a global business or thinking about ways to expand your organization internationally, completing an online Global Business course is an excellent way to quickly gain those skills.

Are you interested in breaking into a global market? Sharpen your knowledge of the international business world with our four-week online course Global Business , and explore our other business in society courses. Not sure which is right for you? Download our free course flowchart .

This article was updated on July 19, 2022. It was originally published on June 29, 2021.

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Managing International Assignments

International assignment management is one of the hardest areas for HR professionals to master—and one of the most costly. The expense of a three-year international assignment can cost millions, yet many organizations fail to get it right. Despite their significant investments in international assignments, companies still report a 42 percent failure rate in these assignments. 1

With so much at risk, global organizations must invest in upfront and ongoing programs that will make international assignments successful. Selecting the right person, preparing the expatriate (expat) and the family, measuring the employee's performance from afar, and repatriating the individual at the end of an assignment require a well-planned, well-managed program. Knowing what to expect from start to finish as well as having some tools to work with can help minimize the risk.

Business Case

As more companies expand globally, they are also increasing international assignments and relying on expatriates to manage their global operations. According to KPMG's 2021 Global Assignment Policies and Practices Survey, all responding multinational organizations offered long-term assignments (typically one to five years), 88 percent offered short-term assignments (typically defined as less than 12 months), and 69 percent offered permanent transfer/indefinite length.

Managing tax and tax compliance, cost containment and managing exceptions remain the three principal challenges in long-term assignment management according to a 2020 Mercer report. 2

Identifying the Need for International Assignment

Typical reasons for an international assignment include the following:

  • Filling a need in an existing operation.
  • Transferring technology or knowledge to a worksite (or to a client's worksite).
  • Developing an individual's career through challenging tasks in an international setting.
  • Analyzing the market to see whether the company's products or services will attract clients and users.
  • Launching a new product or service.

The goal of the international assignment will determine the assignment's length and help identify potential candidates. See Structuring Expatriate Assignments and the Value of Secondment and Develop Future Leaders with Rotational Programs .

Selection Process

Determining the purpose and goals for an international assignment will help guide the selection process. A technical person may be best suited for transferring technology, whereas a sales executive may be most effective launching a new product or service.

Traditionally, organizations have relied on technical, job-related skills as the main criteria for selecting candidates for overseas assignments, but assessing global mindset is equally, if not more, important for successful assignments. This is especially true given that international assignments are increasingly key components of leadership and employee development.

To a great extent, the success of every expatriate in achieving the company's goals in the host country hinges on that person's ability to influence individuals, groups and organizations that have a different cultural perspective.

Interviews with senior executives from various industries, sponsored by the Worldwide ERC Foundation, reveal that in the compressed time frame of an international assignment, expatriates have little opportunity to learn as they go, so they must be prepared before they arrive. Therefore, employers must ensure that the screening process for potential expatriates includes an assessment of their global mindset.

The research points to three major attributes of successful expatriates:

  • Intellectual capital. Knowledge, skills, understanding and cognitive complexity.
  • Psychological capital. The ability to function successfully in the host country through internal acceptance of different cultures and a strong desire to learn from new experiences.
  • Social capital. The ability to build trusting relationships with local stakeholders, whether they are employees, supply chain partners or customers.

According to Global HR Consultant Caroline Kersten, it is generally understood that global leadership differs significantly from domestic leadership and that, as a result, expatriates need to be equipped with competencies that will help them succeed in an international environment. Commonly accepted global leadership competencies, for both male and female global leaders, include cultural awareness, open-mindedness and flexibility.

In particular, expatriates need to possess a number of vital characteristics to perform successfully on assignment. Among the necessary traits are the following:

  • Confidence and self-reliance: independence; perseverance; work ethic.
  • Flexibility and problem-solving skills: resilience; adaptability; ability to deal with ambiguity.
  • Tolerance and interpersonal skills: social sensitivity; observational capability; listening skills; communication skills.
  • Skill at handling and initiating change: personal drivers and anchors; willingness to take risks.

Trends in international assignment show an increase in the younger generation's interest and placement in global assignments. Experts also call for a need to increase female expatriates due to the expected leadership shortage and the value employers find in mixed gender leadership teams. See Viewpoint: How to Break Through the 'Mobility Ceiling' .

Employers can elicit relevant information on assignment successes and challenges by means of targeted interview questions with career expatriates, such as the following:

  • How many expatriate assignments have you completed?
  • What are the main reasons why you chose to accept your previous expatriate assignments?
  • What difficulties did you experience adjusting to previous international assignments? How did you overcome them?
  • On your last assignment, what factors made your adjustment to the new environment easier?
  • What experiences made interacting with the locals easier?
  • Please describe what success or failure means to you when referring to an expatriate assignment.
  • Was the success or failure of your assignments measured by your employers? If so, how did they measure it?
  • During your last international assignment, do you recall when you realized your situation was a success or a failure? How did you come to that determination?
  • Why do you wish to be assigned an international position?

Securing Visas

Once an individual is chosen for an assignment, the organization needs to move quickly to secure the necessary visas. Requirements and processing times vary by country. Employers should start by contacting the host country's consulate or embassy for information on visa requirements. See Websites of U.S. Embassies, Consulates, and Diplomatic Missions .

Following is a list of generic visa types that may be required depending on the nature of business to be conducted in a particular country:

  • A work permit authorizes paid employment in a country.
  • A work visa authorizes entry into a country to take up paid employment.
  • A dependent visa permits family members to accompany or join employees in the country of assignment.
  • A multiple-entry visa permits multiple entries into a country.

Preparing for the Assignment

An international assignment agreement that outlines the specifics of the assignment and documents agreement by the employer and the expatriate is necessary. Topics typically covered include:

  • Location of the assignment.
  • Length of the assignment, including renewal and trial periods, if offered.
  • Costs paid by the company (e.g., assignment preparation costs, moving costs for household goods, airfare, housing, school costs, transportation costs while in country, home country visits and security).
  • Base salary and any incentives or allowances offered.
  • Employee's responsibilities and goals.
  • Employment taxes.
  • Steps to take in the event the assignment is not working for either the employee or the employer.
  • Repatriation.
  • Safety and security measures (e.g., emergency evacuation procedures, hazards).

Expatriates may find the reality of foreign housing very different from expectations, particularly in host locations considered to be hardship assignments. Expats will find—depending on the degree of difficulty, hardship or danger—that housing options can range from spacious accommodations in a luxury apartment building to company compounds with dogs and armed guards. See Workers Deal with Affordable Housing Shortages in Dubai and Cairo .

Expats may also have to contend with more mundane housing challenges, such as shortages of suitable housing, faulty structures and unreliable utility services. Analyses of local conditions are available from a variety of sources. For example, Mercer produces Location Evaluation Reports, available for a fee, that evaluate levels of hardship for 14 factors, including housing, in more than 135 locations.

Although many employers acknowledge the necessity for thorough preparation, they often associate this element solely with the assignee, forgetting the other key parties involved in an assignment such as the employee's family, work team and manager.

The expatriate

Consider these points in relation to the assignee:

  • Does the employee have a solid grasp of the job to be done and the goals established for that position?
  • Does the employee understand the compensation and benefits package?
  • Has the employee had access to cultural training and language instruction, no matter how similar the host culture may be?
  • Is the employee receiving relocation assistance in connection with the physical move?
  • Is there a contact person to whom the employee can go not only in an emergency but also to avoid becoming "out of sight, out of mind"?
  • If necessary to accomplish the assigned job duties, has the employee undergone training to get up to speed?
  • Has the assignee undergone an assessment of readiness?

To help the expatriate succeed, organizations are advised to invest in cross-cultural training before the relocation. The benefits of receiving such training are that it: 3

  • Prepares the individual/family mentally for the move.
  • Removes some of the unknown.
  • Increases self-awareness and cross-cultural understanding.
  • Provides the opportunity to address questions and anxieties in a supportive environment.
  • Motivates and excites.
  • Reduces stress and provides coping strategies.
  • Eases the settling-in process.
  • Reduces the chances of relocation failure.

See Helping Expatriate Employees Deal with Culture Shock .

As society has shifted from single- to dual-income households, the priorities of potential expatriates have evolved, as have the policies organizations use to entice employees to assignment locations. In the past, from the candidate's point of view, compensation was the most significant component of the expatriate package. Today more emphasis is on enabling an expatriate's spouse to work. Partner dissatisfaction is a significant contributor to assignment failure. See UAE: Expat Husbands Get New Work Opportunities .

When it comes to international relocation, most organizations deal with children as an afterthought. Factoring employees' children into the relocation equation is key to a successful assignment. Studies show that transferee children who have a difficult time adjusting to the assignment contribute to early returns and unsuccessful completion of international assignments, just as maladjusted spouses do. From school selection to training to repatriation, HR can do a number of things to smooth the transition for children.

Both partners and children must be prepared for relocation abroad. Employers should consider the following:

  • Have they been included in discussions about the host location and what they can expect? Foreign context and culture may be more difficult for accompanying family because they will not be participating in the "more secure" environment of the worksite. Does the family have suitable personal characteristics to successfully address the rigors of an international life?
  • In addition to dual-career issues, other common concerns include aging parents left behind in the home country and special needs for a child's education. Has the company allowed a forum for the family to discuss these concerns?

The work team

Whether the new expatriate will supervise the existing work team, be a peer, replace a local national or fill a newly created position, has the existing work team been briefed? Plans for a formal introduction of the new expatriate should reflect local culture and may require more research and planning as well as input from the local work team.

The manager/team leader

Questions organization need to consider include the following: Does the manager have the employee's file on hand (e.g., regarding increases, performance evaluations, promotions and problems)? Have the manager and employee engaged in in-depth conversations about the job, the manager's expectations and the employee's expectations?

Mentors play an important role in enhancing a high-performing employee's productivity and in guiding his or her career. In a traditional mentoring relationship, a junior executive has ongoing face-to-face meetings with a senior executive at the corporation to learn the ropes, set goals and gain advice on how to better perform his or her job.

Before technological advances, mentoring programs were limited to those leaders who had the time and experience within the organization's walls to impart advice to a few select people worth that investment. Technology has eliminated those constraints. Today, maintaining a long-distance mentoring relationship through e-mail, telephone and videoconferencing is much easier. And that technology means an employer is not confined to its corporate halls when considering mentor-mentee matches.

The organization

If the company is starting to send more employees abroad, it has to reassess its administrative capabilities. Can existing systems handle complicated tasks, such as currency exchanges and split payrolls, not to mention the additional financial burden of paying allowances, incentives and so on? Often, international assignment leads to outsourcing for global expertise. Payroll, tax, employment law, contractual obligations, among others, warrant an investment in sound professional advice.

Employment Laws

Four major U.S. employment laws have some application abroad for U.S. citizens working in U.S.-based multinationals:

  • Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.
  • The Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA).
  • The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
  • The Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA).

Title VII, the ADEA and the ADA are the more far-reaching among these, covering all U.S. citizens who are either:

  • Employed outside the United States by a U.S. firm.
  • Employed outside the United States by a company under the control of a U.S. firm.

USERRA's extraterritoriality applies to veterans and reservists working overseas for the federal government or a firm under U.S. control. See Do laws like the Fair Labor Standards Act and the Family and Medical Leave Act apply to U.S. citizens working in several other countries?

Employers must also be certain to comply with both local employment law in the countries in which they manage assignments and requirements for corporate presence in those countries. See Where can I find international employment law and culture information?

Compensation

Companies take one of the following approaches to establish base salaries for expatriates:

  • The home-country-based approach. The objective of a home-based compensation program is to equalize the employee to a standard of living enjoyed in his or her home country. Under this commonly used approach, the employee's base salary is broken down into four general categories: taxes, housing, goods and services, and discretionary income.
  • The host-country-based approach. With this approach, the expatriate employee's compensation is based on local national rates. Many companies continue to cover the employee in its defined contribution or defined benefit pension schemes and provide housing allowances.
  • The headquarters-based approach. This approach assumes that all assignees, regardless of location, are in one country (i.e., a U.S. company pays all assignees a U.S.-based salary, regardless of geography).
  • Balance sheet approach. In this scenario, the compensation is calculated using the home-country-based approach with all allowances, deductions and reimbursements. After the net salary has been determined, it is then converted to the host country's currency. Since one of the primary goals of an international compensation management program is to maintain the expatriate's current standard of living, developing an equitable and functional compensation plan that combines balance and flexibility is extremely challenging for multinational companies. To this end, many companies adopt a balance sheet approach. This approach guarantees that employees in international assignments maintain the same standard of living they enjoyed in their home country. A worksheet lists the costs of major expenses in the home and host countries, and any differences are used to increase or decrease the compensation to keep it in balance.

Some companies also allow expatriates to split payment of their salaries between the host country's and the home country's currencies. The expatriate receives money in the host country's currency for expenses but keeps a percentage of it in the home country currency to safeguard against wild currency fluctuations in either country.

As for handling expatriates taxes, organizations usually take one of four approaches:

  • The employee is responsible for his or her own taxes.
  • The employer determines tax reimbursement on a case-by-case basis.
  • The employer pays the difference between taxes paid in the United States and the host country.
  • The employer withholds U.S. taxes and pays foreign taxes.

To prevent an expatriate employee from suffering excess taxation of income by both the U.S. and host countries, many multinational companies implement either a tax equalization or a tax reduction policy for employees on international assignments. Additionally, the United States has entered into  bilateral international social security agreements  with numerous countries, referred to as "totalization agreements," which allow for an exemption of the social security tax in either the home or host country for defined periods of time.

A more thorough discussion of compensation and tax practices for employees on international assignment can be found in SHRM's Designing Global Compensation Systems toolkit.

How do we handle taxes for expatriates?

Can employers pay employees in other countries on the corporate home-country payroll?

Measuring Expatriates' Performance

Failed international assignments can be extremely costly to an organization. There is no universal approach to measuring an expatriate's performance given that specifics related to the job, country, culture and other variables will need to be considered. Employers must identify and communicate clear job expectations and performance indicators very early on in the assignment. A consistent and detailed assessment of an expatriate employee's performance, as well as appraisal of the operation as a whole, is critical to the success of an international assignment. Issues such as the criteria for and timing of performance reviews, raises and bonuses should be discussed and agreed on before the employees are selected and placed on international assignments.

Employees on foreign assignments face a number of issues that domestic employees do not. According to a 2020 Mercer report 4 , difficulty adjusting to the host country, poor candidate selection and spouse or partner's unhappiness are the top three reasons international assignments fail. Obviously, retention of international assignees poses a significant challenge to employers.

Upon completion of an international assignment, retaining the employee in the home country workplace is also challenging. Unfortunately, many employers fail to track retention data of repatriated employees and could benefit from collecting this information and making adjustments to reduce the turnover of employees returning to their home country.

Safety and Security

When faced with accident, injury, sudden illness, a disease outbreak or politically unstable conditions in which personal safety is at risk, expatriate employees and their dependents may require evacuation to the home country or to a third location. To be prepared, HR should have an evacuation plan in place that the expatriate can share with friends, extended family and colleagues both at home and abroad. See Viewpoint: Optimizing Global Mobility's Emergency Response Plans .

Many companies ban travel outside the country in the following circumstances:

  • When a travel advisory is issued by the World Health Organization, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, International SOS or a government agency.
  • When a widespread outbreak of a specific disease occurs or if the risk is deemed too high for employees and their well-being is in jeopardy.
  • If the country is undergoing civil unrest or war or if an act of terrorism has occurred.
  • If local management makes the decision.
  • If the employee makes the decision.

Once employees are in place, the decision to evacuate assignees and dependents from a host location is contingent on local conditions and input from either internal sources (local managers, headquarters staff, HR and the assignee) or external sources (an external security or medical firm) or both. In some cases, each host country has its own set of evacuation procedures.

Decision-makers should consider all available and credible advice and initially transport dependents and nonessential personnel out of the host country by the most expeditious form of travel.

Navigating International Crises

How can an organization ensure the safety and security of expatriates and other employees in high-risk areas?

The Disaster Assistance Improvement Program (DAIP)

Repatriation

Ideally, the repatriation process begins before the expatriate leaves his or her home country and continues throughout the international assignment by addressing the following issues.

Career planning. Many managers are responsible for resolving difficult problems abroad and expect that a well-done job will result in promotion on return, regardless of whether the employer had made such a promise. This possibly unfounded assumption can be avoided by straightforward career planning that should occur in advance of the employee's accepting the international assignment. Employees need to know what impact the expatriate assignment will have on their overall advancement in the home office and that the international assignment fits in their career path.

Mentoring. The expatriate should be assigned a home-office mentor. Mentors are responsible for keeping expatriates informed on developments within the company, for keeping the expatriates' names in circulation in the office (to help avoid the out-of-sight, out-of-mind phenomenon) and for seeing to it that expatriates are included in important meetings. Mentors can also assist the expatriate in identifying how the overseas experience can best be used on return. Optimum results are achieved when the mentor role is part of the mentor's formal job duties.

Communication. An effective global communication plan will help expatriates feel connected to the home office and will alert them to changes that occur while they are away. The Internet, e-mail and intranets are inexpensive and easy ways to bring expatriates into the loop and virtual meeting software is readily available for all employers to engage with global employees. In addition, organizations should encourage home-office employees to keep in touch with peers on overseas assignments. Employee newsletters that feature global news and expatriate assignments are also encouraged.

Home visits. Most companies provide expatriates with trips home. Although such trips are intended primarily for personal visits, scheduling time for the expatriate to visit the home office is an effective method of increasing the expatriate's visibility. Having expatriates attend a few important meetings or make a presentation on their international assignment is also a good way to keep them informed and connected.

Preparation to return home. The expatriate should receive plenty of advance notice (some experts recommend up to one year) of when the international assignment will end. This notice will allow the employee time to prepare the family and to prepare for a new position in the home office. Once the employee is notified of the assignment's end, the HR department should begin working with the expatriate to identify suitable positions in the home office. The expatriate should provide the HR department with an updated resume that reflects the duties of the overseas assignment. The employee's overall career plan should be included in discussions with the HR professional.

Interviews. In addition to home leave, organizations may need to provide trips for the employee to interview with prospective managers. The face-to-face interview will allow the expatriate to elaborate on skills and responsibilities obtained while overseas and will help the prospective manager determine if the employee is a good fit. Finding the right position for the expatriate is crucial to retaining the employee. Repatriates who feel that their new skills and knowledge are underutilized may grow frustrated and leave the employer.

Ongoing recognition of contributions. An employer can recognize and appreciate the repatriates' efforts in several ways, including the following:

  • Hosting a reception for repatriates to help them reconnect and meet new personnel.
  • Soliciting repatriates' help in preparing other employees for expatriation.
  • Asking repatriates to deliver a presentation or prepare a report on their overseas assignment.
  • Including repatriates on a global task force and asking them for a global perspective on business issues.

Measuring ROI on expatriate assignments can be cumbersome and imprecise. The investment costs of international assignments can vary dramatically and can be difficult to determine. The largest expatriate costs include overall remuneration, housing, cost-of-living allowances (which sometimes include private schooling costs for children) and physical relocation (the movement to the host country of the employee, the employee's possessions and, often, the employee's family).

But wide variations exist in housing expenses. For example, housing costs are sky-high in Tokyo and London, whereas Australia's housing costs are moderate. Another significant cost of expatriate assignments involves smoothing out differences in pay and benefits between one country and another. Such cost differences can be steep and can vary based on factors such as exchange rates (which can be quite volatile) and international tax concerns (which can be extremely complex).

Once an organization has determined the costs of a particular assignment, the second part of the ROI challenge is calculating the return. Although it is relatively straightforward to quantify the value of fixing a production line in Puerto Rico or of implementing an enterprise software application in Asia, the challenge of quantifying the value of providing future executives with cross-cultural perspectives and international leadership experience can be intimidating.

Once an organization determines the key drivers of its expatriate program, HR can begin to define objectives and assess return that can be useful in guiding employees and in making decisions about the costs they incur as expatriates. Different objectives require different levels and lengths of tracking. Leadership development involves a much longer-term value proposition and should include a thorough repatriation plan. By contrast, the ROI of an international assignment that plugs a skills gap is not negatively affected if the expatriate bolts after successfully completing the engagement.

Additional Resources

International Assignment Management: Expatriate Policy and Procedure

Introduction to the Global Human Resources Discipline

1Mulkeen, D. (2017, February 20). How to reduce the risk of international assignment failure. Communicaid. Retrieved from https://www.communicaid.com/cross-cultural-training/blog/reducing-risk-international-assignment-failure/

2Mercer. (2020). Worldwide Survey of International Assignment Policies and Practices. Retrieved from https://mobilityexchange.mercer.com/international-assignments-survey .

3Dickmann, M., & Baruch, Y. (2011). Global careers. New York: Routledge.

4Mercer. (2020). Worldwide Survey of International Assignment Policies and Practices. Retrieved from https://mobilityexchange.mercer.com/international-assignments-survey

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International Business

(5 reviews)

international business assignment questions

Mason A Carpenter, University of Wisconsin at Madison

Sanjyot P Dunung, Atma Global

Copyright Year: 2011

ISBN 13: 9781453312995

Publisher: Saylor Foundation

Language: English

Formats Available

Conditions of use.

Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike

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Reviewed by Ashley Beleny, Instructor, Virginia Tech on 4/11/22

The textbook covers a range of issues; however, it goes into areas that are beyond the scope of international business and increases the large about of information to be covered in one semester. read more

Comprehensiveness rating: 4 see less

The textbook covers a range of issues; however, it goes into areas that are beyond the scope of international business and increases the large about of information to be covered in one semester.

Content Accuracy rating: 2

The book is overall accurate, but it needs to be updated. Case studies, information about the current status of China, the WTO and international trade agreements all are out of date.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 5

Trade agreements have changed, such a the RCEP being negotiated, and those changes have affected a number of geopolitical elements that should be acknowledged.

Clarity rating: 4

The book is written in a very conversational tone which is easy to read.

Consistency rating: 5

It is very consistent throughout in its organization.

Modularity rating: 5

The book is divided into sections that can be moved around and organized as is desired for the course.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 4

The structure is a little awkward in the order I would put things and the emphasis I would put on different areas. It skips from one area to another, but overall that makes it more modular if the course is organized in a way that just necessitates readings or sections that can be inserted into the course.

Interface rating: 5

The book is laid out clearly.

Grammatical Errors rating: 5

There are not a significant number of grammatical errors to skew the understanding or flow of the textbook.

Cultural Relevance rating: 4

Culture is a key issue for international business. The cultural section of the book doesn't continue to go into how culture affects how businesses operate to the point appropriate for this course.

The highlighted words that are emphasized in the book are not the keywords in the situation.

Reviewed by Samira Hussein, Professor, Business Administration, Johnson County Community College on 5/30/21

I currently use a textbook from a major publisher which is an introductory text in international business, much like this one. I find that the topics in both texts are comparable. I would not need another text to supplement the material. However,... read more

Comprehensiveness rating: 5 see less

I currently use a textbook from a major publisher which is an introductory text in international business, much like this one. I find that the topics in both texts are comparable. I would not need another text to supplement the material. However, as others have mentioned in their review, the examples seem dated. As long as I emphasized the theoretical part, I would be fine with adopting the textbook. Also, each sub heading is organized with "key takeaways", discussion questions, and a summary. All of this provides reader friendly pedagogy.

Content Accuracy rating: 5

No inaccuracies were noted. The examples provided throughout the textbook provide multiple perspectives, due to which this textbook will enjoy broad appeal to many instructors.

As long as instructors use the book to provide a framework of international business, the textbook will provide the foundation in a comprehensive manner. In the digital world where newsletters to supplement the textbook also become dated, instructors can always add currency to this textbook by providing examples that are current. The book is very relevant to a foundational course since it covers all aspects of international business.

Clarity rating: 5

The prose is written in a manner that creates interest in the topics. I found myself drawn to the several topics and sub topics because of the interesting examples given from not just one part of the globe, but all over. The points made in these headings and sub-headings are summarized, and also practical tips are given quite often. All this provides clarity for the reader.

Consistency is the biggest appeal of this textbook. By the second or the third chapter the reader knows what to expect, and how terminology will be understood through examples, and practical applications.

Modularity rating: 4

Although, I am used to chunking the chapters into sections, I believe that instructors can easily divide the various chapters into broader themes. The author provides each sub-heading as a comprehensive reading assignment. Bibliography is provided at the end of each section which can be assigned as further reading and research for the students.

I would rearrange the topics differently since there are some chapters that would logically flow better next to each other. Sub themes can be created by re-arranging the chapters differently.

Interface rating: 3

I found the blue text within the chapter distracting since they are not hyperlinked. Also, many of the hyperlinks at the end of the section are not functional. The text does not offer many images that may enhance the explanation provided. This creates lack of interest for the reader. However, the images that are provided are relevant within the context of the discussion.

There are no grammatical errors.

Cultural Relevance rating: 5

The very fact that the book provides examples from all over the world rather than certain economies demonstrates cultural sensitivity to me. Furthermore, the examples are interesting and create curiosity for the different regions of the world.

I found the textbook to be relevant, user friendly, and fairly comprehensive. However, with all the bells and whistles provided by textbook publishers, the accuracy of working links, and superior supplements provided for the textbooks a strong draw towards sticking with the publishers. This by no means implies that this text cannot be used as is. If power points, testbanks and other supplements can be added, some of the negatives of this textbook can be easily overlooked. The price is just right ($0)!!

Reviewed by Trunnis Goggins, Adjunct Instructor of Business, Trine University on 4/16/21

This textbook does a great job at providing the basics and foundation of international business. However based on the ever dynamic and changing world of international business, some information is a little dated. read more

This textbook does a great job at providing the basics and foundation of international business. However based on the ever dynamic and changing world of international business, some information is a little dated.

The author does a great job at presenting well-founded and peer reviewed facts. Again due to the rapidly changing laws and trade agreements, it is rather difficult to maintain accuracy in a book like this even from one semester to the next.

This book does a great job at presenting the fundamentals. There are only some aspects of this textbook that may deem to be obsolete. However, the foundational approach of this textbook does give the student a clear and concise description of the inner workings of international business.

The book is well written and does provide real-world scenarios. These scenarios can be extremely helpful in understanding the technical and academic aspects of international business.

The author does a fantastic job of providing a consistent message.

This textbook is written in a way that builds from one chapter to the next. It is easy to follow and its sequence allows the student to continually build on prior learning from prior chapters.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 5

This textbook is very organized and very well planned.

Extremely manageable interface.

I found no grammatical errors

This book was written in a fashion that was sensitive to all cultures. It also gave very valuable insight to the ethical values and cultures of many other economic systems throughout the world.

Reviewed by Ruby Lee, Professor, Florida State University on 11/5/18

The text covers a wide range of topics that are important and timely to international business. Instructors who teach international marketing should also find the text helpful. Nonetheless, the text does not provide index or glossary. read more

The text covers a wide range of topics that are important and timely to international business. Instructors who teach international marketing should also find the text helpful. Nonetheless, the text does not provide index or glossary.

The content is absolutely unbiased and accurate at the time of writing. Many examples and cases discussed in the text are real companies and their issues are continuing.

The text is highly relevant and up-to-date. Examples are well used. The theory and most concepts will not be obsolete within a short period of time. However, the challenge of teaching international business is that companies are consistently changing, revising their strategies, and making various adaptations to stay afloat, and therefore some of the examples (e.g., Google in China) might need to get updates more frequently than others. But it should be relatively easy and straightforward to implement.

The text is easy to understand and follow. Examples are abundant to adequately illustrate various concepts or terminology used in the text. But it would be better if a glossary was included.

The text is highly consistent. Examples (opening cases), contents, and exercises to reinforce students' learning are in order.

The book's modularity follows most mainstream IB textbooks. So, it should not be a problem for instructors to switch from their current text to this one. Each chapter is well organized with smaller reading sections. This definitely allows instructors to pick and choose the topics that fit into their curriculum.

The topics in the text are well organized and presented. Examples (opening cases), contents, and exercises to reinforce students' learning are in order. It would be very helpful if the beginning of each chapter has a table of content.

Interface rating: 4

The text does not have many images and charts. So, I don't see any interface issues.

The text is written in plain English. I do not spot any grammatical errors.

The text is very culturally sensitive indeed. It uses examples from different parts of the world. It further includes real company examples from various countries across the globe to demonstrate the challenge of conducting international business. It's really a nice text.

The text is wonderful overall. Please include a table of content of the text, a table of content for each chapter, a chapter summary, a glossary. More tables and figures to illustrate some of the contents would be helpful too.

international business assignment questions

Reviewed by Barry Hawkey, Adjunct Faculty, Portland Community College on 6/19/18

This is a massive text, and seems to cover everything I’d need in my International Marketing course. Without a table of contents or an index, however, it is difficult to understand the complete flow of this 730-page text! Any instructor using... read more

Comprehensiveness rating: 3 see less

This is a massive text, and seems to cover everything I’d need in my International Marketing course. Without a table of contents or an index, however, it is difficult to understand the complete flow of this 730-page text! Any instructor using this text would need to begin by constructing their own.

This text seems to be very professionally written, and I have found no errors or evidence of bias. I would recommend it to college-level instructors

Relevance/Longevity rating: 4

International Marketing is a rapidly changing topic, so it is difficult to write a text with examples that will not seem out of date in a few years. Examples in this text include Coca-Cola, DeBeers, and Google, which seem unlikely to be rendered obsolete any time soon.

The text is well-organized by section and subsection, but the lack of a table of contents or index makes it very difficult to find every reference to a particular topic. Without those, future updates will be very hard to integrate.

The text is very professionally written. Sentence structures and explanations are easy to follow, and should be easily accessible to college-level students.

Consistency rating: 4

The text is professionally written, and appears well laid-out. I do not see much evidence of language or concepts building on themselves, or of early topics being referenced in later chapters, however. There is also no glossary, and key words do not seem to be given highlighted definitions in the text. Still, the overall voice of the text is very consisent.

The case studies and matching exercises given in every chapter are a huge help, and make the massive text much more approachable to readers.

While the case studies, “amusing anecdotes” and exercises are very helpful, in some areas they seem to overwhelm the actual text. For example, Section 5.3, on The United Nations and the Impact of Trade, begins on page 252 and continues for 9 pages. If you remove all of the ‘asides,’ however, you are left with only 4 pages! More than half of the section is spent on asides.

The lack of any pictures or illustrations hinders reader understanding in some places. For example, the ‘6 Steps of Scenario Planning’ on page 397 would greatly benefit from a flowchart or diagram.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 2

The text does not have a table of contents or index! This makes it very hard to use as a reference, and they should definitely be added. At 730 pages, the lack of a table of contents even makes it hard for an instructor to get a handle on what the book offers.

Interface rating: 2

Blue, underlined text of chapter and section headings are not working hyperlinks, although they seemed designed to look like them.

The lack of pictures and illustrations make these text tiring to read. It always makes the text ‘feel’ unprofessional, although the content itself is great.

This text is very professionally written. I have not found any grammatical errors.

This text appears to be very professionally written. I have not found any evidence of cultural insensitivity, and the examples appear to come from many different countries. It is a large text, however, and I have not read all 730 pages.

While I understand that intellectual property rights somehow must require this book be published with the phrase “Author’s Name retracted as requested by the work’s original creator or licensee,” it is disconcerting to see that phrase appear again and again. That phrase is given 15 times in total, and I expect it will cause readers to question the quality of the content, unfortunately.

Table of Contents

  • Chapter 1: Introduction
  • Chapter 2: International Trade and Foreign Direct Investment
  • Chapter 3: Culture and Business
  • Chapter 4: World Economies
  • Chapter 5: Global and Regional Economic Cooperation and Integration
  • Chapter 6: International Monetary System
  • Chapter 7: Foreign Exchange and the Global Capital Markets
  • Chapter 8: International Expansion and Global Market Opportunity Assessment
  • Chapter 9: Exporting, Importing, and Global Sourcing
  • Chapter 10: Strategy and International Business
  • Chapter 11: Global Entrepreneurship and Intrapreneurship
  • Chapter 12: Winning through Effective, Global Talent Management
  • Chapter 13: Harnessing the Engine of Global Innovation
  • Chapter 14: Competing Effectively through Global Marketing, Distribution, and Supply-Chain Management
  • Chapter 15: Understanding the Roles of Finance and Accounting in Global Competitive Advantage

Ancillary Material

About the book.

International Business is one of the most challenging and exciting courses to teach in the Business School. To teach a current, dynamic and complete course you need a textbook by authors as passionate and informed about International Business as you are.

Carpenter and Dunung's International Business: The Opportunities and Challenges of a Flat World provides exploration into building, leading, and thriving in global organizations in an increasingly flat world. The authors define ”Flat world“ as one where service industries that dwarf manufacturing industries in terms of scale and scope, an Internet that pervades life and work, and networks define modern businesses, whether service or manufacturing. Carpenter and Dunung's text is designed to speak to technologically-savvy students who see national borders as bridges and not barriers.

The authors use the lexicon of international business, and additionally, develop students' knowledge of international contexts with the aim that they may launch, run, and work in any organization that is global in scope (or is wrestling with global competition or other global threats).

The textbook is organized in 5 Sections:

  • Section 1 introduces the global business course and concludes with a chapter on seizing global opportunities.
  • Section 2 develops student knowledge about key facets of the global business environment, while
  • Section 3 develops knowledge about how a student or organization can exploit opportunities in that global environment.
  • Section 4 is devoted to entrepreneurship in a flat world — this section will explore why the entrepreneurial context is changing, provide lenses for identifying and capitalizing on entrepreneurial opportunities, and
  • Section 5 shows how key organizational activities can be managed for global effectiveness. Every chapter has five enumerated learning objectives, each of these five sections concludes with a short summary (”Key Takeaways“) and five review questions.

In addition, each chapter concludes with a mini case on a unique global business that encompasses the topics shown in the chapter. The authors even provide a set of end-of-chapter questions that are mapped to AACSB learning standards, so that you will be able to measure how well students are grasping course content that aligns with the AACSB guidelines. Request a desk copy of Carpenter and Dunung's International Business: The Opportunities and Challenges of a Flat World to experience its current and progressive look at International Business for yourself.

About the Contributors

Mason A. Carpenter (PhD, 1997, University of Texas at Austin) is the M. Keith Weikel professor of leadership at the Univeristy of Wisconsin Madison’s Wisconsin School of Business. His research in strategic management concerns corporate governance, top management teams, social networks, and the strategic management of global startups and is published widely in leading management and strategy journals. He is also author of numerous books used in leading undergraduate, MBA, and educutive education courses around the world, including Principles of Management published by Flat World Knowledge. He is associate editor of the Academy of Management Review and serves on the editorial board of the Strategic Management Journal. At the University of Wisconsin, he is responsible for the undergraduate, MBA, and ExecMBA courses in business, corporate, and global strategy. With others, he has also advised the top management teams and business unit leaders of Fiskars, SABMiller, GE, Harley Davidson, Rockwell International, Vivendi, Kerry Ingredients, Covance, Danisco, Badger Meter, and Banta in the areas of strategy formulation, strategy implementation, and strategic change. His teaching accomplishments include MBA Professor of the Year, notoriety as one of the two most popular professors in several BusinessWeek MBA program polls, the Larson Excellence in Teaching award from the Wisconsin School of Business, and, most recently, a Distinguished Teaching award from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He also works to integrate experiential and behavioral perspectives of strategic management into the classroom through positions on the BPS and SMS Executive Committees, Doctoral and New Faculty BPS consortia, and the widely-used BPS Strategy Teaching Toolkit.

Sanjyot P. Dunung is president of Atma Global (www.atmaglobal.com), a publisher of innovative learning products and solutions for the corporate, higher education, and K-12 markets. The company’s mission is to create engaging, best-of-class, global learning products and solutions focusing on countries, cultures, and global business issues. Sanjyot is a recognized leader in the field of cross-cultural learning and has more than fifteen years of extensive experience in developing leading-edge, multimedia learning solutions. Notably, she is the author of Doing Business in Asia: The Complete Guide, focusing on the cultural issues of conducting business in twenty Asian countries (1995 and 1998 by Simon & Schuster). Sanjyot periodically authors articles on doing business internationally. Further, she has appeared on CNBC-TV, CNN International, Bloomberg TV, and various radio programs and is often a guest speaker at conferences and seminars addressing international business and entrepreneurship. Her book, Straight Talk About Starting and Growing Your Own Business, was released in November 2005 by McGraw Hill; she has two entrepreneurship books, Starting Your Business and Growing Your Business with Business Expert Press. Sanjyot also worked as a banker in New York with American and Japanese banks. Sanjyot was selected as a protégé member of the Committee of 200. She’s cofounder and president of the Dunung-Singh Foundation, committed to providing educational opportunities and hope to underprivileged children. She also served as a member of the board of directors of the US Committee for UNICEF (United Nations Children’s Fund). Sanjyot mentors Afghan women entrepreneurs through Project Artemis. Sanjyot’s academic history includes a BA from Northwestern University and an MBA, with an emphasis in international finance, from Thunderbird, School of Global Management. She is the school’s 1997 recipient of the Distinguished Alumni award. Sanjyot was born in India; was raised in Liverpool, England and Chicago, and now lives in New York with her three sons.

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Questions an Employee Should Ask Before Accepting an International Assignment

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An employee is likely to see an offer of an international assignment as a vote of confidence from an employer and an opportunity for career advancement. However, there are a number of questions the mobile employee should ask of his or her employer prior to accepting the international assignment, especially when it comes to questions related to regulatory requirements (e.g., immigration, tax compliance) and compensation and benefits issues in both the employee’s Home and Host countries.

What Kind of Mobility Support Will Be Provided?

Mobile employees often face a number of regulatory issues stemming from their international move, including making sure that immigration and tax matters are handled appropriately for both themselves and any accompanying family members. The employee needs to determine whether he or she will be facing these matters on their own or whether their employer has a plan in place to provide them with assistance.

Many companies that regularly assign employees internationally have programs in place to ensure their employees are compliant with the immigration requirements of the Host country and the tax issues that often arise in both the Home and Host countries. However, if the company does not provide such a program, the mobile employee needs to seek clear answers as to the assistance their employer will be providing. For example, if your employer is not planning to provide support regarding tax issues while you are working internationally, you should seek the assistance of a global mobility tax professional in advance of the move to ensure you understand and can take the steps needed to comply with all applicable laws and regulations. Failure to comply can result in unforeseen tax bills, reputational damage, and even legal issues. 

Likewise, the mobile employee needs to inquire as to whether company support will continue once they have relocated to the Host country. Issues with a mobile employee’s residency and tax obligations may arise months or even years after they have relocated to a Host country. Will your employer provide support after you are established in the Host country, or does the company only provide support for mobile employees during their initial move? If your employment or personal income become subject to tax at a higher tax rate than you would have had in your Home country, will the company cover this increase in tax liability through tax gross-ups or a tax equalization policy that is designed to keep you in a neutral tax position during your employment abroad?

Will You Be Subject to Tax in the Host Country for Income or Social Tax Purposes?

Mobile employees may be subject to Host country income and/or social tax from their first day of work in the new location. For this reason, it is critical to understand the Host country tax rules in advance of working abroad. Here, the employee and employer should understand both the domestic rules for registering (i.e., do you need a tax identification number), reporting income, making tax payments (e.g., withholding or other payments), and filing income tax returns. In addition, there may be income tax treaties or totalization agreements (an agreement between the Home and Host location for social security purposes) that can address potential double taxation and compliance requirements.   

Although many income tax treaties provide for a Host country income tax exemption for temporary employment, often for periods up to 183 days, it is important to understand if this rule will apply. The “183 day” rule is only one of a number of conditions that must be met to qualify for the exemption and the specific rule and interpretation can vary by country combination. As well, even if an income tax treaty exemption applies, it will only govern the income tax requirements and will not protect a mobile employee from other types of taxes or social security payments that may be levied in the Host country.

Rather than attempting to work through the complex Home and Host country tax rules themselves, mobile employees should consult with their company or an outside mobility tax specialist to understand how their income will be taxed and the company policies that apply for compliance support and to address any incremental tax burdens 

What Are the Company’s Compensation and Benefits Policies for International Employees?

It is important for a mobile employee to understand the potential incremental costs that can apply when working abroad and their company’s policy for handling these costs. Some costs, such as housing and moving expenses are more obvious. However, there can also be differences between the Home and Host location for the cost of goods, transportation, and children’s education that may require further review.   

Some companies will structure compensation packages in a manner that ensures the mobile employee will not suffer a reduction of income because of the assignment. This may include working with a data provider who specializes in understanding the differences in cost between the Home and Host location. As mentioned above, it is also important for the employee to consider the difference in taxation between the locations in determining their take-home pay. Many companies will employ a tax reimbursement policy (e.g. tax equalization) to address any difference in Home and Host tax costs. 

Note that some employers distinguish between international assignments that are initiated by the company and those that are requested by the employee. The company may not provide the same degree of assistance for differences in cost between the Home and Host location for self-initiated scenarios. In those situations, an employee will find it much harder to procure a tax equalization arrangement from their employer making it even more critical to obtain professional advice in advance of the move.

Sometimes an international assignment will move a mobile employee from his or her Home country employer to a subsidiary located in the Host country. The change can have a much larger impact on mobile employees than just a change in the name of the company issuing their paycheck. The subsidiary may offer a different benefits package, including changes in medical plans, insurance, and retirement plans. The move could also cause a mobile employee to lose benefits that have been accrued with their current employer. 

Here again, it is critical for the employee to understand what benefits will apply while working abroad and the Home and Host country implications. For example, there can be tax implications for ongoing participation in the Home country pension plan in the Host country or Home country tax complexities if participating in a Host country plan. If possible, a mobile employee should also negotiate to address any reduction in benefits or loss of accrued benefits as a result of accepting an international assignment.

US citizens and residents face a number of challenges when they live and work in another country. One of the most significant challenges is understanding the application of US and foreign tax laws. Download our taxation booklet designed to help US citizens and residents gain a general understanding of the unique tax provisions associated with living and working abroad.

Download the booklet here.

The information provided in this article is for general guidance only and should not be utilized in lieu of obtaining professional tax and/or legal advice.

Author Gina Chang

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International Business Assignment

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BUAD 386 Assignment 2 Template (1)

Intercultural and International Business Communication

The international assignment, learning objectives.

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

  • Describe how to prepare for an international assignment.
  • Discuss the acculturation process as an expatriate.
  • Describe effective strategies for living and working abroad.

Suppose you have the opportunity to work or study in a foreign country. You may find the prospect of an international assignment intriguing, challenging, or even frightening; indeed, most professionals employed abroad will tell you they pass through all three stages at some point during the assignment. They may also share their sense of adjustment, even embrace of their host culture, and the challenges of reintegration into their native country.

An international assignment, whether as a student or a career professional, requires work and preparation, and should be given the time and consideration of any major life change. When you lose a loved one, it takes time to come to terms with the loss. When someone you love is diagnosed with a serious illness, the news may take some time to sink in. When a new baby enters your family, a period of adjustment is predictable and prolonged. All these major life changes can stress an individual beyond their capacity to adjust. Similarly, in order to be a successful “expat,” or expatriate, one needs to prepare mentally and physically for the change.

International business assignments are a reflection of increased global trade, and as trade decreases, they may become an expensive luxury. As technology allows for instant face-to-face communication, and group collaboration on documents via cloud computing and storage, the need for physical travel may be reduced. But regardless of whether your assignment involves relocation abroad, supervision of managers in another country at a distance, or supervision by a foreign manager, you will need to learn more about the language, culture, and customs that are not your own. You will need to compare and contrast, and seek experiences that lend insight, in order to communicate more effectively.

An efficient, effective manager in any country is desirable, but one with international experience even more so. You will represent your company and they will represent you, including a considerable financial investment, either by your employer (in the case of a professional assignment) or by whoever is financing your education (in the case of studying abroad). That investment should not be taken lightly. As many as 40 percent of foreign-assigned employees terminate their assignments early, Tu, H., & Sullivan, S. (1994). Business horizons . Retrieved from http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1038/is_nl_v37/ai_14922926 at a considerable cost to their employers. Of those that remain, almost 50 percent are less than effective. Tu, H., & Sullivan, S. (1994). Business horizons . Retrieved from FindArticles.com: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1038/is_nl_v37/ai_14922926

Preparation

With this perspective in mind, let’s discuss how to prepare for the international assignment and strategies to make you a more effective professional as a stranger in a strange land. First we’ll dispel a couple of myths associated with an idealized or romantic view of living abroad. Next we’ll examine traits and skills of the successful expatriate. Finally, we’ll examine culture shock and the acculturation process.

Your experience with other cultures may have come firsthand, but for most, a foreign location like Paris is an idea formed from exposure to images via the mass media. Paris may be known for its art, as a place for lovers, or as a great place to buy bread. But if you have only ever known about a place through the lens of a camera, you have only seen the portraits designed and portrayed by others. You will lack the multidimensional view of one who lives and works in Paris, and even if you are aware of its history, its economic development, or its recent changes, these are all academic observations until the moment of experience.

That is not to say that research does not form a solid foundation in preparation for an international assignment, but it does reinforce the distinction between a media-fabricated ideal and real life. Awareness of this difference is an important step as you prepare yourself for life in a foreign culture.

If the decision is yours to make, take your time. If others are involved, and family is a consideration, you should take even more care with this important decision. Residence abroad requires some knowledge of the language, an ability to adapt, and an interest in learning about different cultures. If family members are not a part of the decision, or lack the language skills or interest, the assignment may prove overwhelming and lead to failure. Sixty-four percent of expatriate respondents who terminated their assignment early indicated that family concerns were the primary reason. Contreras, C. D. (2009). Should you accept the international assignment? BNET . Retrieved from http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa5350/is_200308/ai_n21334696

Points to consider include the following:

  • How flexible are you?
  • Do you need everything spelled out or can you go with the flow?
  • Can you adapt to new ways of doing business?
  • Are you interested in the host culture and willing to dedicate the time and put forth the effort to learn more about it?
  • What has been your experience to date working with people from distinct cultures?
  • What are your language skills at present, and are you interested in learning a new language?
  • Is your family supportive of the assignment?
  • How will it affect your children’s education? Your spouse’s career? Your career?
  • Will this assignment benefit your family?
  • How long are you willing to commit to the assignment?
  • What resources are available to help you prepare, move, and adjust?
  • Can you stand being out of the loop, even if you are in daily written and oral communication with the home office?
  • What is your relationship with your employer, and can it withstand the anticipated stress and tension that will result as not everything goes according to plan?
  • Is the cultural framework of your assignment similar to—or unlike—your own, and how ready are you to adapt to differences in such areas as time horizon, masculinity versus femininity, or direct versus indirect styles of communication?

This list of questions could continue, and feel free to add your own as you explore the idea of an international assignment. An international assignment is not like a domestic move or reassignment. Within the same country, even if there are significantly different local customs in place, similar rules, laws, and ways of doing business are present. In a foreign country, you will lose those familiar traditions and institutions and have to learn many new ways of accomplishing your given tasks. What once took a five-minute phone call may now take a dozen meetings and a month to achieve, and that may cause you some frustration. It may also cause your employer frustration as you try to communicate how things are done locally, and why results are not immediate, as they lack even your limited understanding of your current context. Your relationship with your employer will experience stress, and your ability to communicate your situation will require tact and finesse.

Successful expatriates are adaptable, open to learning new languages, cultures, and skilled at finding common ground for communication. Rather than responding with frustration, they learn the new customs and find the advantage to get the job done. They form relationships and are not afraid to ask for help when it is warranted or required. They feel secure in their place as explorer, and understand that mistakes are a given, even as they are unpredictable. Being a stranger is no easy task, but they welcome the challenge with energy and enthusiasm.

Acculturation Process

Acculturation , or the transition to living abroad, is often described as an emotional rollercoaster. Steven Rhinesmith Rhinesmith, S. (1984). Returning home . Ottawa, Canada: Canadian Bureau for International Education. provides ten steps that show the process of acculturation, including culture shock, that you may experience:

  • Initial anxiety
  • Initial elation
  • Initial culture shock
  • Superficial adjustment
  • Depression-frustration
  • Acceptance of host culture
  • Return anxiety
  • Return elation
  • Reentry shock
  • Reintegration

Humans fear the unknown, and even if your tolerance for uncertainty is high, you may experience a degree of anxiety in anticipation of your arrival. At first the “honeymoon” period is observed, with a sense of elation at all the newfound wonders. You may adjust superficially at first, learning where to get familiar foods or new ways to meet your basic needs. As you live in the new culture, divergence will become a trend and you’ll notice many things that frustrate you. You won’t anticipate the need for two hours at a bank for a transaction that once took five minutes, or could be handled over the Internet, and find that businesses close during midday, preventing you from accomplishing your goals. At this stage, you will feel that living in this new culture is simply exhausting. Many expats advise that this is the time to tough it out—if you give in to the temptation to make a visit back home, you will only prolong your difficult adjustment.

Over time, if you persevere, you will come to accept and adjust to your host culture, and learn how to accomplish your goals with less frustration and ease. You may come to appreciate several cultural values or traits and come to embrace some aspects of your host culture. At some point, you will need to return to your first, or home, culture, but that transition will bring a sense of anxiety. People and places change, the familiar is no longer so familiar, and you too have changed. You may once again be elated at your return and the familiar, and experience a sense of comfort in home and family, but culture shock may again be part of your adjustment. You may look at your home culture in a new way and question things that are done in a particular way that you have always considered normal. You may hold onto some of the cultural traits you adopted while living abroad, and begin the process of reintegration.

The international assignment requires adaptability. FIGURE 18.3: © 2010 Jupiterimages Corporation

The international assignment requires adaptability.

You may also begin to feel that the “grass is greener” in your host country, and long to return. Expatriates are often noted for “going native,” or adopting the host culture’s way of life, but even the most confirmed expats still gather to hear the familiar sound of their first language, and find community in people like themselves who have blended cultural boundaries on a personal level.

Living and Working Abroad

In order to learn to swim you have to get in the water, and all the research and preparation cannot take the place of direct experience. Your awareness of culture shock may help you adjust, and your preparation by learning some of the language will assist you, but know that living and working abroad take time and effort. Still, there are several guidelines that can serve you well as you start your new life in a strange land:

  • Be open and creative . People will eat foods that seem strange or do things in a new way, and your openness and creativity can play a positive role in your adjustment. Staying close to your living quarters or surrounding yourself with similar expats can limit your exposure to and understanding of the local cultures. While the familiar may be comfortable, and the new setting may be uncomfortable, you will learn much more about your host culture and yourself if you make the effort to be open to new experiences. Being open involves getting out of your comfort zone.
  • Be self-reliant . Things that were once easy or took little time may now be challenging or consume your whole day. Focus on your ability to resolve issues, learn new ways to get the job done, and be prepared to do new things.
  • Keep a balanced perspective . Your host culture isn’t perfect. Humans aren’t perfect, and neither was your home culture. Each location and cultural community has strengths you can learn from if you are open to them.
  • Be patient . Take your time, and know a silent period is normal. The textbook language classes only provide a base from which you will learn how people who live in the host country actually communicate. You didn’t learn to walk in a day and won’t learn to successfully navigate this culture overnight either.
  • Be a student and a teacher . You are learning as the new member of the community, but as a full member of your culture, you can share your experiences as well.
  • Be an explorer . Get out and go beyond your boundaries when you feel safe and secure. Traveling to surrounding villages, or across neighboring borders, can expand your perspective and help you learn.
  • Protect yourself . Always keep all your essential documents, money, and medicines close to you, or where you know they will be safe. Trying to source a medicine in a country where you are not fluent in the language, or where the names of remedies are different, can be a challenge. Your passport is essential to your safety and you need to keep it safe. You may also consider vaccination records, birth certificates, or business documents in the same way, keeping them safe and accessible. You may want to consider a “bug-out bag,” with all the essentials you need, including food, water, keys, and small tools, as an essential part of planning in case of emergency.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

  • Research one organization in a business or industry that relates to your major and has an international presence. Find a job announcement or similar document that discusses the business and its international activities. Share and compare with classmates.
  • Conduct a search on expat networks including online forum. Briefly describe your findings and share with classmates.
  • What would be the hardest part of an overseas assignment for you and why? What would be the easiest part of an overseas assignment for you and why?
  • Find an advertisement for an international assignment. Note the qualifications, and share with classmates.
  • Find an article or other first-person account of someone’s experience on an international assignment. Share your results with your classmates.
  • Communication For Business Success. Authored by : anonymous. Located at : http://2012books.lardbucket.org/books/communication-for-business-success/ . License : CC BY-NC-SA: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike

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International Business Management Question Papers

Sample Question papers of International Business Management for MBA, MMM, PGDM, BBA and other management Students. We hope these IBM model question papers will help students to get an idea about the pattern of Question Papers. We have referred previous years Pune University questions papers to create these sample sets.

Ref. SPPU/M’9

Table of Contents

Instructions for Candidates

I) Section-II (case study) is compulsory. 2) Attempt any three questions from section-I. 3) Each question from section-I carries 15 marks and section-II (case study) carries 25 marks.

SECTION – I

Q1) What are the barriers to internation~l trade? List and explain all the types of barriers to international trade.

Q2) Explain the concept of country risk analysis. Comment on socio-economic risk and its management.

Q3) What do you mean by Multi-National Enterprises? Explain all t~e advantages and disadvantages of MNEs from the point of view of MNEs as well as the host country.

Q4) What are the various methods of payment available for settlement of international trade? Explain the working of a letter of credit and list all the types of L/Cs.

Q5) Write short notes on any three:

a) International Monetary Fund.

b) WTO Ministerial Conferences.

c) International market selection.

d) 2004-09 EXIM Policy.

e) Global sourcing and its impact on an Indian Industry.

SECTION – II

Q6) CASE STUDY

Gillette Targets Emerging Markets’

As it entered the twenty-first century, Gillette faced a difficult choice. Should it continue targeting emerging markets or not? Its strategy to move aggressively into markets in the developing world and the former Soviet bloc had been hailed as a success only a few years before. Recent poor earnings, however, had management considering whether this choice had been a wise one.

The Boston-based firm was founded in 1895 and is still best known for its original products, razors and razor blades. By the end of the twentieth cent~ry, Gillette had grown into a global corporation that marketed. its products in 200 countries and employed 44,000 people worldwide. About 1.2 billion people use Gillette products every day. Its sales are about equally distributed among the United States (30 per cent), Western Europe (35 per cent), and the rest of the world (35 per cent).

As markets matured in developing countries, Gillette sought growth through product diversification, moving into lines such as home permanents, disposable lighters, ballpoint pens, and batteries. In the mid-1990s, Gillette targeted several key emerging markets for growth. Among them were Russia, China, India and Poland.

Russia was already a success story. Gillette had formed a Russian joint venture in St.Petersburg and within 3 years Russia had become Gillette’s third-largest blade market.

Gillette’s move into the Czech Republic had prospered as well and in 1995 Gillette bought Astra, a 10caI; privately-owned razor blade company. Astra gave Gillette expanded brand presence in the Czech market. Astra’s relatively strong position in export markets ~n East Europe, Africa and Southeast Asia proved a boon to Gillette in those markets as well. Jus.t as in other markets in the developing world, 70 per cent of East European blade .consumers used the older, lower-tech double-edge blade. In more developed markets, consumers appreciated product innovation and the shaving market had moved to more high-tech systems such as Gillettes Sensor.)

Then disaster struck. A financial crisis that began in Thailand quickly spread across Asia. Many wary investors responded by pulling money out of other emerging markets as well as depressing economies across the globe. Bad economies meant slower sales for Gillette, especially in Asia, Russia and Latin America. In Russia, wholesalers could not afford to buy Gillette products. Consequently, these products disappeared from retail stores and Gillette’s Russian sales plummeted 80 per cent in a single month.

Gillette found it could not meet its projected annual profit growth of 15-20 per cent. The price of Gillette shares tumbled 36 per cent in 6 months. To save money, Gillette planned to close 14 factories and layoff 10 per cent of its workforce.

Despite its recent bad experience in developing countries and in the former Soviet bloc, Gillette was still moving ahead with plant expansion plans in Russia and Argentina that would total $64 million. Some even suggested that this was a good time to expand in the emerging markets by buying up smaller competitors that had been hurt even worse by the crises. Meanwhile, back in the developed world, another large global consumer products firm, Unilever, announced that it would be entering the razor market.

Discussion Questions

1. Why do companies such as Gillette target emerging markets? Do you agree with this strategy? 2. What are the dangers to Gillette of targeting emerging markets? 3. Why would local, privately-owned companies like Astra want to sell out to companies like Gillette Why are such companies attractive acquisitions to multinational firms? 4.   What global strategy would you suggest for a company such as Gillette? Explain your choice.

Ref. SPPU/M’8

Instructions to the candidates:

1) Attempt any Four questions. 2) All questions carry equal marks.

Q1) Explain with diagram Griesinger’s Cybernetic Paradigm of the Control Process.

Q2) What are the features of a profit centre? What are the advantages and disadvantages of profit centre?

Q3) What do you understand by ROI & EVA as a performance measure for Investment centres? Compare the merits and demerits of the two?

Q4) What do you understand by Goal Congruence? Give examples and explain the problem of Goal congruence faced by multidivisional companies at different levels.

Q5) Write short notes on (Any Three) a) Internal Audit. b) Value Chain. c) Just in Time. d) Activity-Based Costing. e) Two-step Transfer Pricing.

Q6) National Ltd is a wholesaler who sells its products to a wide range of retailers. Marketing is done through three geographical areas: the South, the Midlands and the North. The estimates of the costs and revenues for each sales territory for the next accounting period are as follows.

South                 Midlands             North                               Total (£)        (£)               (£)        (£)           (£)            (£)             (£) Sales                      900 000                 1000 000                900 000     2800 000 Cost of goods           400 000              450 000             500 000         1350 000 Sold Gross Profit            500 000                 550 000                   400 000     1450 000 Fixed selling Costs: Salesmen’s 80 000          100 000           120 000

Sales office and Management expenses     40 000                  60 000                 80 000 Advertising  50 000                  50 000          50 000 Salesmen’s expenses   50 000  220 000     60 000  270 000  80 000        330000 Headquarters administration expenses                  80 000                 90 000                   90 000 warehousing            32 000                  36 000                  36 000 costs Total costs               332 000                396 000                   456 000     1184 000 Net profit (or loss)     168 000               154 000                     (56000)           266000

The products are packaged and dispatched from a central warehouse, and it is estimated that 50% of the costs are variable and the remainder are fixed. All of the selling costs are fixed, with the exception of salesmen’s expenses, which are variable with sales revenue. All of the administrative expenses of the headquarters are common and unavoidable to all alternatives and have been apportioned to sales territories on the basis of sales value. In view of the loss, should the North area be closed?

Ref. SPPU/M’8new

1) Attempt any three questions from Q1 to Q5.

2) Q6 is compulsory.

3) Figures to the right indicate marks.

Q1) Explain the Informal Management Control System structure with detailed discussion on the following sub-systems. [18]

a) Management Style and Culture.

b) Infrastructure.

c) Rewards.

d) Coordination and Integration. e) Control Process.

Q2) Explain the nature of Activity Based Costing and compare it with Traditional Costing. What are the four different levels of activities used in ABC to allocate costs? What are the benefits of ABC? Give examples to show how ABC is superior to Traditional Costing and how it leads to more accurate management control of product costs.   [18]

Q3) In deciding on the investment base to be used in evaluating managers of Investment centres what practices the best measure the performance of the unit as an economic entity? Give the pros and cons of different practices related to current and fixed assets measurement. [18]

Q4) What do you understand by goal congruence? Explain the importance of achieving goal congruence in designing Management Control Systems in following Sub-systems.

a) Staff welfare & Rewards System.

b) Profit Centres / Transfer Pricing.

c) Allocation of Head Quarters’ expenses on different divisions.     [18]

Q5) Write short notes on any Three

a) Control Systems in Service Organizations.

b) Management Audit.

c) Strategic Planning and Management Control.

d) Annuity Depreciation.

e) Engineered and Discretionary expense centres.

Q6) Actual performance data of 5 divisions of XYZ Ltd. are as follows. (Figures in Rs. Lakhs)

Division  Profit Average Current             Average Fixed Assets                            Assets A             80            90                   400 B             60            190                 450 C             50            350                 550 D             105          200                 800 E             155          200                 800

a) Compute ROI for each division.

b) Compute EVA for each division. Charge on the usage of Current Assets is 50/0 and Fixed Assets is 10%.

c) XYZ Ltd. decides to make an investment in Fixed Assets costing Rs. 1 Crore. This investment is expected to produce a profit of Rs. 10 lakhs per year, what will be the effect on ROI and EVA of each division? Comment on the results.

d) If XYZ decides in a declining market, a retrenchment strategy and sells a plant reducing fixed assets by Rs. 75 lakhs, there will be a reduction in annual profits by Rs. 5 lakhs. What will be the effect on ROI and EVA of each division? Comment on the results.                                                       [16]

Ref/ SPPU/D’8

Time: 3Hours

1) Attempt any three questions from 1 to 6. 2) Attempt anyone from 7 & 8. 3) Figures to the right indicate full marks.

Q. 1)  Explain the control process thoroughly. Elaborate the role played by each of its elements. Elaborate scope of management control systems.  [18]

Q. 2) In a typical organization one can observe goal conflicts arising out of different roles its people play/assume i.e. an individual, hierarchical, functional, organizational. How one can resolve this conflict? Explain with suitable example.” [18]

Q. 3) Explain the input-output relationship. What role it plays in performance assessment of responsibility centres. Justify your answer with suitable examples:  [18]

Q. 4) Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of strategic planning.  [18]

Q. 5) Discuss the cause-effect relationship between the four perspectives of the balanced scorecard. Give a suitable example. [18]

Q. 6) Compare (any three) :   [18]

a) Profit centre and revenue centre.

b) Rolling budget and zero-based budget.

c) MCS in a manufacturing unit and for a project.

d)”Engineered cost and budget” and “Discretionary cost and budget”.

e) Financial and Non-financial measures.

f) Traditional costing and ABC.

Q. 7)  ABC Ltd is a multi-division integrated company. One of its division “A” produces a product, which is being sold in the open market entirely. However, in view of demand from division “B”, “A” supplies part of its produce to ‘B’. To keep motivated both the divisions, the company has established a transfer pricing policy such that’ B’ shall pay actual full cost plus 50% of profit division.

‘A’ would have made if it would have sold the product in the open market. Given below the sales and cost data for division’ A’.

Volume per annum 10,000 units

External sales @ Rs.150 per unit 6,000 units Internal transfer as per TP policy 4,000 units.

Variable cost Rs.80 per unit

Fixed cost Rs.20 per unit.

a)     Compute the transfer price per unit need to be born by division ‘B’ in the Present circumstances. b)      Incase demand from division B goes up from 4,000 to 6,000 units and division agrees to pay 60% of profit instead of 500/0 agreed earlier. Compute transfer price in this situation.

c)      Compute profitability of division’ A’, in case of situations discussed in 1 & 2 above.

d)     Given selling price of the final product by ‘B’ is Rs.250 per unit, variable cost ofRs.30 per unit (excluding transfer price) and fixed cost ofRs.20 per unit (based on the volume of 4,800 units). compute the profitability of division ‘B’ in both the above-discussed situations’- 1 & 2. Offer your comments on the suitability of approach. [16]

Q. 8)  Mis. Mittal Ltd has two divisions M & N. Division M sales two-third of its produce to division N and rests in the open market. Cost and revenue of these divisions and that of the company for year 2,000 is given as under:

(Amt.in Rs.)                          M              N          Company Sales (outside only)                        16,000     48,000     64,000 Cost of manufacturing            24,000     20,000     44,000 (Internal + outside sales) Profit                                                      20,000

There is no opening or closing stock. You are required to find out the profit of each division and that of the company under following options of transfer prices-

a) at cost.

b) at cost plus a margin of25%.

c) at cost plus a margin of 25% ; but there is overspending in division M by Rs.3,000. d) at market price.  [16]

Ref. SPPU/O’7

1) Please attempt any three questions from serial No.1 to serial No.6. 2) Question No.7 (Case Study) is compulsory. 3) Answers from Q. 1 to Q. 6 will attract a maximum of 15 marks each. 4) Question No.7 will carry 25 marks.

Ql) Using the example of a suitable company. Describe their process of achieving Globalisation, in various stages.  [15]

Q2) Analyse the factors that affect a. country risk evaluation? Which are the three worst types of risks? And why?   [15]

Q3) Write all you know about ‘World Trade Organisation’. Explain TRIPS, TRIMS and DSBs.  [15]

Q4) How do trade blocks function? Illustrate with two examples. What are tariff Nontariff & trade barriers?  [15]

Q5) Write Short Notes on (Any three) :  [15]

a) Balance of Trade.’

b) Balance of Payment.

d) World Bank

e) Methods of Payment.

f) EXIM Policy.

Q6} Describe the various methods used for evaluating & selecting countries as markets. What strategies should be deployed for successful entry?   [15]

Q 7) P1ease scrutinise the enclosed case study & answer the questions at the end of the case study [25]

The localisation of Global Companies:

Korean Experience Countries tend to be more concerned about large companies than small ones because of their greater potential impact on national economic and political. objectives. But not all companies operating internationally is large. In fact, the number of new MNEs is growing at about 4,000 to 5,000 per year. These are generally smaller companies with smal1er foreign investments. Generally, they have to do less to justify their entry and operations. Because they are assumed. to have less impact on host societies, countries often treat their entries differently. Further, many LDC governments prefer the entry of smaller companies because they may be more willing to yield to host -country wishes, increase c01npetition because of their numbers, and supply smaller-scale technology more suited to LDC needs.

Internationalisation is viewed as a process leading to the outcome of a competitive environment that in turn induces efficiency in production and optimality in resource allocation. A few economists refer to internationalisation as a surrogate to indicate the level of cross-border production by Multi-National Corporations (MNCs) and their network of affiliates, subcontractors and partners. Yet another viewpoint analyses the different dimensions of internationalisation ascribing the internationalisation of corporate strategies, in particular, their commitment to competition as well as the internationalisation of consumer and financial markets, the diminished role of national governments in designing the rules for international governance, and so on as a set of characteristics describing the different. dimensions df the process.

Superior Performance from Indian Subsidiaries

In the past, it was the Indian subsidiaries of the MNEs who had to depend on their parent companies for financial support. Though many of the Indian subsidiaries still do that, a new phenomenon is also gaining ground. Many of the Indian subsidiaries of major MNEs like ABB, LG, Samsung, Nestle, and Siemens, to name a few, are all beating their parent companies on the performance scale, and India is fast emerging as the growth engine for MNEs. Some of these Indian subsidiaries are even clocking double-digit growth even when their parent companies are recording losses.

Though the vast Indian market of the billion-plus population holds great opportunity for the consumer goods companies, this phenomenon is not restricted to that sector only. Indian subsidiaries for the MNEs in non:-consumer goods sectors such as engineering and pharmaceuticals are also showing the same phenomenon. Global sales for Siemens (Siemens AG) has decreased by 3.4 per cent m 2002 (total sale in 2003 was only $83,784 million) while the Indian subsidiary of Siemens showed an increase in net sales by 13.8 per cent.

Changing Global Dynamics

With rapid globalisation, intensive competition and poor economic conditions prevailing in most economies, l’vfN”Es arc always searching for ways to reduce costs to improve the bottom line. As a result, we have seen a rise in outsourcing to India Along with this- India’s advantage of the availability of low-cost skilled labour gained importance. On the flip side, with the opening up of the Indian economy, new opportunities arrived, which these companies have grabbed successfully. International Business

At the same time, opening up of the Indian economy and moderately high growth rate have attracted new competitors. With increased competition, companies have to reassess their existing investments and business portfolio. Those businesses, where returns on investments were not high and were not contributing significantly to their overall profit, were sold or hived off. The restructuring has left the Indian subsidiaries in a better position to move ahead of the competition.

Manufacturing Efficiencies

Production of goods and managing supply chain effici~ntly has also helped Indian subsidiaries of the MNEs to contribute more to their bottom line. Low manpower cost in manufacturing has helped the Indian subsidiaries very much. Siemens India benefited by shedding its excess workforce and reorganising its workforce has been able to reduce its costs. At the factory level, the company reorganised its workforce on the basis of employees’ ability to handle functions across one or more divisions. As a result, Siemens was able to maintain the same efficiency in terms of output level with 50 per cent fewer employees.

Hyundai India has the best-integrated manufacturing plant amongst the Indian subsidiaries of the MNEs. The efficiency of Hyundai India’s operation at its Chennai plant has made the top management of its parent company in South Korea to send 2,000 managers and workers from its plant to Seoul to study Indian subsidiary’s operations. Siemens has also reduced -its number of vendors from 20,000 to 2,000 with plans of further reducing them. Earlier the sheer number of vendors complicated the process of checking, ensuring quality, and delivery time. It has since then started grading its suppliers on several- parameters.

LG has followed kaizen in its Indian manufacturing plants, with the ultimate aim to achieve Six Sigma Quality. LG has also passed on the same. work ethics to its suppliers.

Hyundai is planning to make Hyundai India as the global sourcing base for Santro. Siemens India is now also becoming increasingly significant. contributor to Siemens AG. The outsourcing from Siemens India now contributes 21 per cent of its consolidated revenues. Cummins India now exports to China and Mexico.

Customer-Driven

While MNEs like Kellogg’s failed to understand the Indian consumers, relentless focus towards the Indian consume~s has enabled these companies to increase their sales, which has a positive impact on their revenues and profits. The localisation of products and knowing what the Indian consumers want worked well for the consumer goods companies. Samsung has learned this aspect quickly and that it is very important for them to live to the expectations of the Indian consumers to stay on in the Indian market.

Samsung has washing machines with unique ‘sari guard’ and a memory restart: the feature that is ideally suited for India where there are frequent power cuts. LG has also launched TV s with Hindi and regional language menus.

Both Samsung and LG have launched TV sets with more than 800 watts ‘of sound, compared to the normal 200 watts. This is a result of findings by both the companies that Indians like more volume on their TV sets because famili~s often watch in a noisy environment. With the end-consumers in mind, LG now offers products with unique technology. Its Plasma range air­conditioners with their unique Gold Fin technology offer air-filtering benefit. For the lower-end market, where the consumers are price-conscious, LG has launched low-priced TV such as Cine plus.

Nestle India launched a low priced (Rs 2) liquid chocolate, called Choc stick to cater to the price-conscious customers. Hyundai Accent has a powerful engine and sleek interiors at an attractive price range. In Siemens’ case, the company has introduced several programmes to seek, generate and monitor customer feedback, and improve response time. It even redesigned indirect sales channels. One such customer-related programme is the Key Account Management (KAM) concept. Earlier, a customer was being approached by people from. two or more. divisions of the company.. In the KAM concept, one key’= executive is responsible for getting business from all divisions of that customer. The company ~Iso initiated a mystery call~r competition, under ­which top Siemens executives acting as customers would call up executives of various centres at different times, even during lunch hours. These initiatives have resulted in an increase in the number of repeat orders, which resulted, in generating more revenues and profits.

Strategic Wonders

Formulating successful strategies and executing them efficiently played an important role in behincl these companies’ profitability; be it in the entry-level, manufacturing, marketing, branding and pricing. Some of these companies have also found huge success by entering the vast rural market. Even though Hyundai entered the Indian market only in 1996, it was able to lead in all the three auto segments, namely B-segment, C-segment and D-segment, in which it competes. Hyundai’s choice of the deluxe small car to enter the Indian auto market instead of a sedan was its brilliant strategic move. Hyundai had correctly read the gap in the Indian market in that segment. That success helped Hyundai to establish its brand among the Indian consumers and has allowed Hyundai’s parent company to introduce more new cars in other segments in India.

Marketers of these companies have adopted different strategies for launching products, LG’s strategy of promoting its premium models like Flatron helps the brand creation. an image of a high technology company. , The company has positioned its products keeping.in ‘mind the health-conscious attitude of Indians. Samsung’s ‘DigitaIAll’ campaign has worked in positioning. ~ Samsung as a company, which produces high technology products in the minds of the consumers. Hyundai has used the image of Shahrukh Khan in advertising its Santro, which was an instant hit among the Indian consumers: ~

CASE DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

  • A parent corporation is looking at Indian subsidiary for improving its quality of corporate governance and enhancing profitability. The theory says the reverse will happen, i.e. spillover effect from the parent to the subsidiary. This is also considered as the greatest honour ever received for Indian corporates in the professional arena.

i) What are the factors that may result in higher profitability? ii) What can be the impact of customer-driven business practices in Indian environment? iii) What are the measures that can be taken by the MNEs to improve their local image in India? There is a growing concern about the opening up of the retail sector in India. What is the significance of retail MNEs in the national economy by looking at the experience of Korean MNEs in India?

Ref. SPPU/M’7

Instructions for candidates

1) Please attempt any three questions from Q. No.1 to Q. No.6. 2) Question No.7 (case study) is compulsory. 3) Answers from Q. No.1 to Q. No.6 will attract a maximum of 15 marks each. Q. No. 7’s answer 25 marks.

Ql) What is Globalization – Its forces, meaning, dimensions and stages? Select any company as an example and describe their working. [15]

Q2) What are Tariff, Non-Tariff barriers and Trade barriers? What are Trade Blocks – explain 2 examples. [15]

Q3) What do you understand by Country Risks? What are the factors that affect? a country’s risk? [15]

Q4) Write short notes on IMF, World B~ Exim Policy, Methods of Payment in International Trade, Balance of Payment, Balance of Trade? (Any 3) [15]

Q5) Write all you know about WTO with emphasis on TRIPS, TRIMS and DSB. [15]

Q6) What the strategies for Market selection and Entry in the International Market?  [15]

Q7) Please examine the enclosed case study and answer the questions at the end of the same.  [25] The emergence of New Industry: Story of Indian BPO

Trade theories advocate the optimum utilisation of resources and reducing the cost of production globally. This leads to a new tendency, which we call outsourcing less important or back-office works to low wage countries like India and China. The growing demand for backup is adding a dimension to the quickly proliferating outsourcing industry. Traditionally, conservative businesses such as insurance companies and mortgage brokers are contracting out back-office and customer service work, mirroring the way corporate titans such as IBM and General Electric moved such tasks away from the US several years ago. As new clients are handing over duties to third party companies rather than to their own subsidiaries, and in countries where they often have little experience, they feel more comfortable with suppliers who have good backup plans.

(a) Role  ‘Of Educational Institution

Clearly, there are things that the educational institutions can do to help that. Some of the institutions have taken initiatives to get there and some are ~ waiting to see how these experiments shape up. There is also a lot of talks ‘:. about the need for the industry and academia to come together so that it will ” eventually help the industry better. But not much seems to be happening in this area. The orientation (of the academic institutions) will have to be a little different than the existing one, view the industry as their customers and do what’s good for the industry and get rated by the industry.

Unless the academia has that kind of alignment with customer interests, it’s difficult for them to devise the most appropriate curricula and syllabi. It is only when the academic institutions realise that they are serving ‘” a certain customer base and they need to fulfil the needs of that customer base and take proactive action internally, that the situation would improve. But, at this point of time, it appears as though the entire onus is on the industry to do it. Today, academia seems to say if you want these people you come and do whatever it is to make these people suitable for companies.

(b) Rising Demand

The huge pool of human resources in India is much talked about and a chunk of the human resources from the engineering colleges. The mistake companies commonly make is to underestimate the human potential that is available, and not providing them with the right type of opportunities. We must remember that the IT industry recruits the top 1 per cent of the brainpower that is available in this country. This number is small compared to the ones “that go to school, and the ones that graduate. So it means its the cream of the cream that gets into this industry. And so in terms of brainpower, it’s quite unmatched.

Unlikely, for the next several years, it’s not going to be uncompetitive. The wage increase is only marginal, and the productivity improvement that happens year after year compensates for the bulk of the increase that happens. To that extent, its not a factor ~o worry about, at least for the next four to five years. Nasscom report (May 2004) predicts that within a few years, there will be less supply of qualified human resource in India compared to the demand. Forrester (May 2004) says that by 2010, 3.3 million jobs will be created in IT and IT-related areas in India, That’s a lot of people. This means many companies may not go after the top 1 per cent, and they would expand it to the top 5 per cent, for which, the educational institutions have to change and intensify the courses, and should be meritocracy-based. People who score good marks or are more intelligent do get into higher schools.

(c) In Search of Talents

In order to get a comprehensive mix of capabilities and high talent, companies decided to look at outside universities as well. They went to Carnegie Mellon, Stanford, MIT, and Columbia for recruitment. These are all Ivy League schools that attract top talent. Earlier, people hesitated to come to India. A couple of years back, many Indian companies went to recruit but they .were not interested in coming to India and spending some time here.

The beginning of 2003 was a turning point when the media turned their attention to offshoring in a big way. The visibility was very high and everybody was suddenly talking about India. There is a lot more that gets outsourced to China in terms of manufacturing than to India, but India got a far greater share of that visibility. That’s when people realised that there is so much happening in India, and wanted to be a part of. it.

But when a company goes to these schools, ask for GPA-based filtering of candidates, say a GPA of over 3.5 or 3.8, most of them are Indians. Indians somehow seem to have mastered the trade of how to get high GP A. So, companies had to do a different mix in order to make sure they have a good mix of people who have gone from India to study in the USA as well as the local people, and people from other countries.

(d) Chennai, the BPO Hub

Offshore projects accounted for over 70 per cent of the total software exports of Tamil Nadu during 2003-4, according to Software Technology Parks of India, Chennai. Tamil Nadu’s total IT exports stood at Rs. 7,621.50 crore (Rs. 7621 billion) during the last fiscal, including exports from STPI, MEPZ, and other units.

Chennai and its suburbs continued to be the major software exporting locations in the state. Exports from these locations stood at Rs. 7,557.64 crore (Rs. 75.58 billion), followed by Coimbatore region at Rs. 45.76 crore (Rs. 457.6 million), and Tiruchi at Rs. 13.42 crore (Rs. 134.2 million). Application software and system software accounted for 60 per cent of total exports, followed by consultancy services at 28 per cent, and ITES at 8 per cent. Tata Consultancy Services was the top exporter from Tamil Nadu, followed by Infosys Technologies, HCL Technologies, Cognizant Technology Solutions, Wipro, and Polaris Software. Tamil Nadu’s hardware exports crossed Rs. 100 crore (Rs. 1 billion), and stood at Rs. 118.88 crore (Rs. 1.19 billion) in 2003.

1. To what extent does the theory of Comparative Advantage explain the rise of th~ Indian BPO industry? 2. To what extent does the Heckscher-Ohlin theory explain the rise of the Indian BPO industry? 3. Use Michael Porter’s diamond to analyse the rise of the Indian BPO industry. Does this analysis help explain the rise of this industry?

SPPU/M’6

Note: 1)     Question No 6 (case study) is compulsory 2)     Attempt any three questions from the remaining question 3)     All question carry equal marks

1)     Define a multinational corporation. What are the benefits of MNC’s operating in developing countries from the point of view of the host country?

2)     What are the causes of political risk that may impact a firm? What are the different means adopted by companies to deal with political risks in international business?

3)     Explain the mechanics of ‘Currency Trading’ in detail. What do you understand by

a)     spot

b)      forward and

c)      Swap transaction?

4)     The whole universe is a potential market for your products. Discuss the various market entry strategies that need to be evolved to exploit this potential.

5)     Write short notes on any three of the following

a)     Function and objectives of W.T.O.

b)      Classical theory of comparative cost.

c)      Different types of Letters of Credit.

d)     South-East Asian crisis.

e)     Asian development bank.

6)     CASE study: cutting edge ltd

Cutting Edge Ltd., a Nashik based company is globally set up, for its unique products. This is a precise example of a which has remarkable skills and strategies for identifying new product developing them for commercial exploitation. The company always at global operation right from the beginning. It was very quick in and establishing itself firmly in the international markets.

The company began its corporate journey in the year 1995manufacturing of quality scissors used for various application/uses did not lose any time and was quick enough to spread its wings in other countries. By the end of the year 2004, it had added more products portfolio, popular among them are razors and blades.

CEL’s manufacturing operations, apart from Nashik are in more than 10 locations in four countries. The products are market for more than 20 countries. Within a span of fewer than 10 years, CEL has its overseas revenue from a meagre US$50000 to US$140 million. It concentrated on its main line of scissors and blades and expanded the by adopting novel ideas like distribution-free razor blades or scissors bank(Shave and save plan) or (Cut and cut the expenditure plan). Even the recessionary period it sponsored major sporting events and through worldwide advertising kept up its sales.

The remarkable strategy adopted by this company is in identifying a for which there was need and developing from the beginning a high product and convincing consumers to buy quality and sophisticated. This enabled the company to sell more expensive products at a higher profit. It kept in close touch with the market and the needs of the and produced new product as demand arose. The company considerable market research and design engineering.

CEL realized the importance of exports and international operation. Words, international operation/business was the part of the plan from inception to the company and not an afterthought.

Out of the total sales of US$140 million, almost 92% sales are coming from the developed market like U.S.A., Canada Japan, etc. the company has not been able to make inroads in developing and underdeveloped markets. One of the main reasons fearing is that in the developing and underdeveloped markets it may able to enjoy the same profit margins as it is enjoying in developed CEL would like to make sure that its presence must be felt in the developing and underdeveloped markets and business contribution from these markets must be enhanced to a  large extent without harming the profitability picture.

Analyse the case and guide the CEL management in increasing the sales revenue from the less developed markets without hampering the company’s overall profitability.

SPPU/O’5

1) Question no. 6 (case study) is compulsory

2) Answer any three questions from the remaining questions.

3) All three carry equal marks

Q1) Explain the various factors to be considered while scanning the international business environment. Give one example of each Factor.

Q2) Explain the terms:

a) Transaction Exposure.

b) Transfer Pricing.

Q3) Write a note on contributions of multi-national enterprises with reference to the market. Highlight the criticisms levelled against the MNE’s.

Q4) Describe the objectives and functions of the World Trade Organisation. Comment on the organization structure of WTO.

Q5) Write short notes on any three of the following.

a) Global sourcing.

b) Ricardian theory of comparative advantage.

c) Non-tariff barriers to international trade.

d) Management of political risk in international business.

e) International Monetary Fund.

Q6) Case Study:

The globalization of the Indian economy has led to the establishment of a number of large and medium firms as licensing was not necessary. This resulted in the production of a number of goods, more than the demand in some cases. Consequently, some small scale units which were receiving Govt. protection became sick. The earlier sick units became mortal. Some examples in this category were textile units in Ahmedabad, electronic units in Delhi, consumer goods firms in Mumbai, AP Lightings, Anantapur, steel melting units in Hindupur, paper mills in Coastal Andhra and leather units in Chennai. Globalization resulted in the entry of a number of MNC’s in India through exports, joint ventures etc. in the addition, U.S.A and Malaysia dumped cooking oil, steel, electronic products etc. European countries exported milk and other agro-based products. These factors created a slump in the market due to excess supply. Further, the decline in employment opportunities affected the purchasing power of middle-class consumers adversely.

This created like China, S.Korea produced goods at a cheaper rate than India. This created havoc in the market. The policy of globalization was criticized by some. Other quarters of the industry felt that Indian business and industry should learn management techniques and focus on high productivity and low cost.

In the light of above answer the following questions:

1) Is globalization desirable for the Indian economy? Why?

2) How globalization will benefit Indian Consumers?

3)  Identify the key areas wherein the Indian manufactures need to improve to enable them to compete internationally.

Q1) Discuss the importance of strategic marketing decisions in marketing planning with suitable examples.

Q2) In view of the foreign institutes entering India in near future, what strategic options you will suggest to Indian Management institutes to counter the possible competition? Your suggestions shall be based on SWOT analysis.

Q3)” Freebies and discounts are aimed at making loyal customers purchase more quantities in advance attracting non-users to try the product. However, with all major players offering freebies and discounts, this strategy is proving counter-productive’. Critically discuss this statement with examples.

Q4) Discuss with examples of how marketing mix strategies change within PLC stages of a product.

Q5) Write short notes on any THREE:

a) Export pricing strategy

b) Cost strategy v/s differentiation strategy.

c)  Distribution strategy in declining markets.

d) International branding.

e) MLM and ethical issues.

SECTION – II

Q6) Explain with examples how the characteristics of rural market segments based on various criteria of segmentation.

Q7) Sachet packing is normally introduced to ultimately increase the demand for large packing. However, in India, sachet packing is contributing to almost 70% of the sales of FMCGs like shampoo and tea. Discuss this phenomenon with reference to typical characteristics of Indian rural market.

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Online Free Samples

International Business Assignment: Challenges Faced By A Managers

Assessment Details: Describe, using academic references, the international challenges and possible opportunities for managers operating in a global environment.

Provide a recent practical example of an Australian organisation which has faced the challenges of international competition and expansion. You can use companies which have been in recent news, such as Qantas, or Ford, for sources.

Give your personal view of how some of the conflict generating and solutions could have been handled in a more effective process.

Introduction It is becoming difficult for the managers operating global business due to the increasing uncertainties, rapid and intense changes in the global business environment. A firm which has plans to go for international investment for production or marketing – fundamentally require effective understanding of environmental factors of that business both at home country and host country. Through analysis of internal and external factors an organization scan restrain to the situation and take necessary provision while strategizing decisions on global business for business operation. The global environmental observations involve observations of specific industry segment globally to find business opportunity. Such observation based on the objective of detecting the variations in demand conditions for goods or services globally. This can be done by defining and finding trend indicators related to the factor of observation (Gupta, 2013). A manager of the firm makes an assessment of possible opportunities by analyzing the observed data. The international business assignment will discuss the opportunities and challenges faced by the managers in operating International business. The international business assignment will also discuss the impact of the foreign environment and global environment on the investment and expansion decisions of management of multinational corporations.

Operating in Global environment Dymsza developed a conception on evolution of internationalization which reveals that the successful managerial role is the key driving factor for effective business performance in global market. The global environmental issues of a firm to be emerged as a multinational corporation play an important role in making managerial decisions related in other countries. It is quite obvious for a manager to analyze different factors while making new business decisions. The analysis of global business environment is an essential prerequisite for strategic management and effective decision-making. Today, multinational organization is giving greater emphasis on the analysis of global business environment while expanding their business to outside their country boundary. Some of the major factors which affect the managerial business decisions of the firms include Economic issues, Political issues, Socio-cultural issues, Technological issues, and Legal issues (Ristovska & Ristovska, 2014). The economic environment is the most important parameter for managerial international business decisions. There are a number of general and useful indicators that are needed for assessing an economic environment in which most of the multinational companies operate (Burzynski, Graeml & Balbinot, 2010). Some of the indicators related to economic issues of the firm as well as the home country are listed below:

  • The financial capability of the firm,
  • The low-cost finance availability within the country for long-term external investment,
  • The type of the economy at home country,
  • Low profit in local business due to high local competition,
  • Possession of quality endowments in the country of global standards,
  • Skilled manpower and prior global experience lead to confidence in investment.

The political environment also plays an important role in the international business decisions to be taken by a firm. These political issues listed below have direct or an indirect influence on managerial business decisions:

  • Due to changes in political conditions and changes in governing political parties and their philosophy, the Country policy and State government policies towards supporting the FDI investments are changing with time.
  • In case of certain specific products with possible military applications, political environment play an important role in firms decision-making process.
  • The export and import of certain materials to the subsidiaries of the firm may be banned by the country government through enhanced tariffs, or fixing quotas, or limiting FDI flow etc (Burzynski, Graeml, & Balbinot, 2010).

Considering the social issues, it is difficult for a manager working in global front to manage customers with a new set of values and lifestyles. Since the culture and tradition of a country decide consumer behavior in a given country. Apart from this, there are Technological issues such as different technological gap, where a firm decides to invest more on R & D and to get access to global technology Furthermore, the legal environment in any country for international investment and market relates to the laws and regulations governing the business decisions (Gupta, 2013).

Challenges in operating International ? The main issues faced by the manager while making international business decisions are as follows:

  • Currency Differences: Due to the differences between currencies used in different countries and also due to the fluctuation in their exchange value, there is large uncertainty in currency rate with time. Further, the firms in host country have to make all payments for their imports in host country currency (Heino, 2008).
  • Difference in Natural and Geographical Conditions: Natural endowments like fresh water, raw materials, mine and minerals, soil quality, rainfall amount, weather and temperature etc. may differ drastically between different countries. Due to such changes in natural and geographical conditions, countries and their firms may specialize themselves in the production of certain commodities with high-quality and low-cost. Such specialization based high-quality low-cost products of local firms may impose challenges to the foreign firms to take investment decisions.
  • The issues like availability of skilled labors and capital in host country for the firm’s business or the possible mobility of such factors of endowment from the home country are getting importance while making the international business investment decision (Hyvönen, 2013).
  • Difference in Political Systems: Presently in the world, each and every country is considered as an independent political entity with its own political agenda to maintain the countries (people and firms) interest. Depending on political conditions and policies, of the country, there may be a substantial difference in the tax imposed on domestic firms and on international firms which may hinder the interest of the firms on international business investment.
  • Difference in Legal Systems: The difference in legal systems between different countries makes the various business processes quite difficult especially due to the reason that they have to study and follow legal provisions of the two countries as regards to a particular trade.
  • Population & Occupation Distribution: The population and its distribution, the education level and occupational distribution also differ from country to country. This leads the availability skilled and experienced employees in foreign countries. A firm which is intended to invest in another country should study the availability of skilled workers before taking decisions related to such investment (Ristovska & Ristovska, 2014).
  • Transportation Infrastructure: The type, availability, and the cost of transportation systems in the host country to transport the raw materials and finished products from sources to production plant and from the production plant to market also contribute the decision on expanding the business by international investment (Katerina &Aneta, 2014).
  • Scalability in Production: The increase in the scale of production gives many advantages for the firms including low unit production cost. This supports firms to increase their production by creating more demand. One of the methods to increase the demand for the firm’s products is creating more demand for such products through expanding the market share to other countries through proper international investment decisions.
  • Differences in Production Costs: The cost of production of any product differs from one country to another due to various reasons which include the availability of quality natural resources, supportive geographical conditions, supportive industries, skilled employees, production in large scale, degree of automation, availability of developed technology etc. The international investment decision is strongly influenced by the cost of production in a given foreign country and the opportunity to become cost leader (Katerina &Aneta, 2014).
  • Degree of Self-sufficiency: The opportunity of creating demand for its products to expand market share is the major objective of any firm while deciding on international business in a foreign country. Such opportunity of creating demand mainly depends on the degree of self-sufficiency of that foreign country and is usually, differs from country to country. Therefore, the countries which cannot produce at all or can produce only at a very high cost, are the potential host countries to attract international business investments.

Qantas International challenges Qantas is one of the major aviation industries in Australia and is facing several external and internal problems which have effectively influenced the performance of the organization in global market. However in last few years the organization is facing three major international threats. Firstly, in 2011 the dispute raised between the organization and TWU in demand of further increase of wages and enhancement of working condition. The warning and restructuring policies of Qantas’s CEO resulted in downsizing of labor and loss of around $70 million. Secondly, in 2010 the natural disasters all around the world such as massive earthquake in Haiti & Iceland volcanic explosion have effectively influence the business performance of Qantas. Lastly the increase in petrol price in last few years left Qantas under severe financial pressure. For example, the jet fuel price in Singapore has risen from US$88 to US$131 in 2014 (Button, 2018).

Opportunities for managers operating in a global environment? Operating in a global environment provides a wide assortment of products, technologies, and knowledge, and these expansions give a potential to spread suggestively to the larger customer bases. As a manager in MNC, global market denotes larger dimensions for sales and business, and more empowerment through the procurement of further capital and resources. These benefits are viewed as most practical, provides a best possible benefits to the manager of an MNC (Katerina & Aneta, 2014).

The common benefits of manager in operating globally include unsaturated market for the new products, lower labour costs, lower expensive natural possessions and other efforts to operational process (Kemp & Dwyer, 2003). Technological advancement plays a vital role for the managers of MNC while operating business internationally in much more convenient way. The manager seek to take advantage from globalism by marketing goods in several countries, as well as obtaining production unit in regions that can yield goods more beneficially. In other words, a manager can choose to work globally either because they can attain higher levels of profits or because they can attain a lower cost of structure within their operations.

Recomendation for effective management in International environment Global environmental issues can be identified and monitored with the help of a checklist based procedure that evaluates every possible favorable and unfavorable factor. In general, while analyzing every factor in global environmental issues, a proper procedure has to be developed systematically to identify changes. Some of the major recommendations for manager for effective management in International environment ?are discussed below.

  • Global Environmental Observation: The global environmental observations involve observations of specific industry segment globally to find business opportunity. Such observation based on the objective of detecting the variations in demand conditions for goods or services globally. This can be done by defining and finding trend indicators related to the factor of observation (Okoye & Nwaigwe, 2015).
  • Global Environmental monitoring: Global environmental observation is the initial component of the global environmental analysis. After identifying critical trends and potential events during observation, the next step is called global environmental monitoring. In this stage, the identified issues and opportunities have to be repetitively observed by the manager in order to monitor the specified change indicators based on a defined purpose.
  • Global Environmental assessment: In this step of the global environmental analysis, the firm makes an assessment of possible opportunities by analyzing the data. It may use various data analysis techniques available in various research methodologies.
  • Global Environmental forecasting: In this stage of environmental analysis, the direction, speed, and intensity of environmental trends are predicted through environmental forecasting. The prediction for possible opportunities and threats is the focus in this stage.

Conclusion In this sample solution of international business assignment a detailed analysis is done by referring to the academic theories which helped us to arrive at an accurate inference. It is known that the international business management is a risky process due to many unanticipated environmental changes and environmental factors which effects the successful management of the foreign business of a firm as sustainable for long time. Although in this international business assignment it is found that it is extremely difficult for the today’s managers operating global business due to the increasing uncertainties, rapid and intense changes in the global business environment. However, the issues corresponding to the global environment for managerial business decisions can be analyzed using Global environmental Observation, Global environmental monitoring, and Global environmental assessment and Global environmental forecasting. This procedure of global environmental analysis in this international business assignment allows manager to take optimum decisions in international business for sustainable profit. International business assignments are being prepared by our business assignment help experts from top universities which let us to provide you a reliable assignment help service.

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1.2.7: The International Assignment

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Learning Objectives

  • Describe how to prepare for an international assignment.
  • Discuss the acculturation process as an expatriate.
  • Describe effective strategies for living and working abroad.

Suppose you have the opportunity to work or study in a foreign country. You may find the prospect of an international assignment intriguing, challenging, or even frightening; indeed, most professionals employed abroad will tell you they pass through all three stages at some point during the assignment. They may also share their sense of adjustment, even embrace of their host culture, and the challenges of reintegration into their native country.

An international assignment, whether as a student or a career professional, requires work and preparation, and should be given the time and consideration of any major life change. When you lose a loved one, it takes time to come to terms with the loss. When someone you love is diagnosed with a serious illness, the news may take some time to sink in. When a new baby enters your family, a period of adjustment is predictable and prolonged. All these major life changes can stress an individual beyond their capacity to adjust. Similarly, in order to be a successful “expat,” or expatriate, one needs to prepare mentally and physically for the change.

International business assignments are a reflection of increased global trade, and as trade decreases, they may become an expensive luxury. As technology allows for instant face-to-face communication, and group collaboration on documents via cloud computing and storage, the need for physical travel may be reduced. But regardless of whether your assignment involves relocation abroad, supervision of managers in another country at a distance, or supervision by a foreign manager, you will need to learn more about the language, culture, and customs that are not your own. You will need to compare and contrast, and seek experiences that lend insight, in order to communicate more effectively.

An efficient, effective manager in any country is desirable, but one with international experience even more so. You will represent your company and they will represent you, including a considerable financial investment, either by your employer (in the case of a professional assignment) or by whoever is financing your education (in the case of studying abroad). That investment should not be taken lightly. As many as 40 percent of foreign-assigned employees terminate their assignments early (Tu, H. and Sullivan, S., 1994), at a considerable cost to their employers. Of those that remain, almost 50 percent are less than effective (Tu, H. and Sullivan, S., 1994).

Preparation

With this perspective in mind, let’s discuss how to prepare for the international assignment and strategies to make you a more effective professional as a stranger in a strange land. First we’ll dispel a couple of myths associated with an idealized or romantic view of living abroad. Next we’ll examine traits and skills of the successful expatriate. Finally, we’ll examine culture shock and the acculturation process.

Your experience with other cultures may have come firsthand, but for most, a foreign location like Paris is an idea formed from exposure to images via the mass media. Paris may be known for its art, as a place for lovers, or as a great place to buy bread. But if you have only ever known about a place through the lens of a camera, you have only seen the portraits designed and portrayed by others. You will lack the multidimensional view of one who lives and works in Paris, and even if you are aware of its history, its economic development, or its recent changes, these are all academic observations until the moment of experience.

That is not to say that research does not form a solid foundation in preparation for an international assignment, but it does reinforce the distinction between a media-fabricated ideal and real life. Awareness of this difference is an important step as you prepare yourself for life in a foreign culture.

If the decision is yours to make, take your time. If others are involved, and family is a consideration, you should take even more care with this important decision. Residence abroad requires some knowledge of the language, an ability to adapt, and an interest in learning about different cultures. If family members are not a part of the decision, or lack the language skills or interest, the assignment may prove overwhelming and lead to failure. Sixty-four percent of expatriate respondents who terminated their assignment early indicated that family concerns were the primary reason (Contreras, C. D., 2009).

Points to consider include the following:

  • How flexible are you?
  • Do you need everything spelled out or can you go with the flow?
  • Can you adapt to new ways of doing business?
  • Are you interested in the host culture and willing to dedicate the time and put forth the effort to learn more about it?
  • What has been your experience to date working with people from distinct cultures?
  • What are your language skills at present, and are you interested in learning a new language?
  • Is your family supportive of the assignment?
  • How will it affect your children’s education? Your spouse’s career? Your career?
  • Will this assignment benefit your family?
  • How long are you willing to commit to the assignment?
  • What resources are available to help you prepare, move, and adjust?
  • Can you stand being out of the loop, even if you are in daily written and oral communication with the home office?
  • What is your relationship with your employer, and can it withstand the anticipated stress and tension that will result as not everything goes according to plan?
  • Is the cultural framework of your assignment similar to—or unlike—your own, and how ready are you to adapt to differences in such areas as time horizon, masculinity versus femininity, or direct versus indirect styles of communication?

This list of questions could continue, and feel free to add your own as you explore the idea of an international assignment. An international assignment is not like a domestic move or reassignment. Within the same country, even if there are significantly different local customs in place, similar rules, laws, and ways of doing business are present. In a foreign country, you will lose those familiar traditions and institutions and have to learn many new ways of accomplishing your given tasks. What once took a five-minute phone call may now take a dozen meetings and a month to achieve, and that may cause you some frustration. It may also cause your employer frustration as you try to communicate how things are done locally, and why results are not immediate, as they lack even your limited understanding of your current context. Your relationship with your employer will experience stress, and your ability to communicate your situation will require tact and finesse.

Successful expatriates are adaptable, open to learning new languages, cultures, and skilled at finding common ground for communication. Rather than responding with frustration, they learn the new customs and find the advantage to get the job done. They form relationships and are not afraid to ask for help when it is warranted or required. They feel secure in their place as explorer, and understand that mistakes are a given, even as they are unpredictable. Being a stranger is no easy task, but they welcome the challenge with energy and enthusiasm.

Acculturation Process

Acculturation, or the transition to living abroad, is often described as an emotional rollercoaster. Steven Rhinesmith provides ten steps that show the process of acculturation, including culture shock, that you may experience:

  • Initial anxiety
  • Initial elation
  • Initial culture shock
  • Superficial adjustment
  • Depression-frustration
  • Acceptance of host culture
  • Return anxiety
  • Return elation
  • Reentry shock
  • Reintegration

Humans fear the unknown, and even if your tolerance for uncertainty is high, you may experience a degree of anxiety in anticipation of your arrival. At first the “honeymoon” period is observed, with a sense of elation at all the newfound wonders. You may adjust superficially at first, learning where to get familiar foods or new ways to meet your basic needs. As you live in the new culture, divergence will become a trend and you’ll notice many things that frustrate you. You won’t anticipate the need for two hours at a bank for a transaction that once took five minutes, or could be handled over the Internet, and find that businesses close during midday, preventing you from accomplishing your goals. At this stage, you will feel that living in this new culture is simply exhausting. Many expats advise that this is the time to tough it out—if you give in to the temptation to make a visit back home, you will only prolong your difficult adjustment.

Over time, if you persevere, you will come to accept and adjust to your host culture, and learn how to accomplish your goals with less frustration and ease. You may come to appreciate several cultural values or traits and come to embrace some aspects of your host culture. At some point, you will need to return to your first, or home, culture, but that transition will bring a sense of anxiety. People and places change, the familiar is no longer so familiar, and you too have changed. You may once again be elated at your return and the familiar, and experience a sense of comfort in home and family, but culture shock may again be part of your adjustment. You may look at your home culture in a new way and question things that are done in a particular way that you have always considered normal. You may hold onto some of the cultural traits you adopted while living abroad, and begin the process of reintegration.

18.7.0.jpg

You may also begin to feel that the “grass is greener” in your host country, and long to return. Expatriates are often noted for “going native,” or adopting the host culture’s way of life, but even the most confirmed expats still gather to hear the familiar sound of their first language, and find community in people like themselves who have blended cultural boundaries on a personal level.

Living and Working Abroad

In order to learn to swim you have to get in the water, and all the research and preparation cannot take the place of direct experience. Your awareness of culture shock may help you adjust, and your preparation by learning some of the language will assist you, but know that living and working abroad take time and effort. Still, there are several guidelines that can serve you well as you start your new life in a strange land:

  • Be open and creative . People will eat foods that seem strange or do things in a new way, and your openness and creativity can play a positive role in your adjustment. Staying close to your living quarters or surrounding yourself with similar expats can limit your exposure to and understanding of the local cultures. While the familiar may be comfortable, and the new setting may be uncomfortable, you will learn much more about your host culture and yourself if you make the effort to be open to new experiences. Being open involves getting out of your comfort zone.
  • Be self-reliant . Things that were once easy or took little time may now be challenging or consume your whole day. Focus on your ability to resolve issues, learn new ways to get the job done, and be prepared to do new things.
  • Keep a balanced perspective . Your host culture isn’t perfect. Humans aren’t perfect, and neither was your home culture. Each location and cultural community has strengths you can learn from if you are open to them.
  • Be patient . Take your time, and know a silent period is normal. The textbook language classes only provide a base from which you will learn how people who live in the host country actually communicate. You didn’t learn to walk in a day and won’t learn to successfully navigate this culture overnight either.
  • Be a student and a teacher . You are learning as the new member of the community, but as a full member of your culture, you can share your experiences as well.
  • Be an explorer . Get out and go beyond your boundaries when you feel safe and secure. Traveling to surrounding villages, or across neighboring borders, can expand your perspective and help you learn.
  • Protect yourself . Always keep all your essential documents, money, and medicines close to you, or where you know they will be safe. Trying to source a medicine in a country where you are not fluent in the language, or where the names of remedies are different, can be a challenge. Your passport is essential to your safety and you need to keep it safe. You may also consider vaccination records, birth certificates, or business documents in the same way, keeping them safe and accessible. You may want to consider a “bug-out bag,” with all the essentials you need, including food, water, keys, and small tools, as an essential part of planning in case of emergency.

Key Takeaways

Preparation is key to a successful international assignment. Living and working abroad takes time, effort, and patience.

  • Research one organization in a business or industry that relates to your major and has an international presence. Find a job announcement or similar document that discusses the business and its international activities. Share and compare with classmates.
  • Conduct a search on expat networks including online forum. Briefly describe your findings and share with classmates.
  • What would be the hardest part of an overseas assignment for you and why? What would be the easiest part of an overseas assignment for you and why?
  • Find an advertisement for an international assignment. Note the qualifications, and share with classmates.
  • Find an article or other first-person account of someone’s experience on an international assignment. Share your results with your classmates.

Contreras, C. D. (2009). Should you accept the international assignment? BNET . Retrieved from findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa5350/is_200308/ai_n21334696.

Rhinesmith, S. (1984). Returning home . Ottawa, Canada: Canadian Bureau for International Education.

Tu, H., & Sullivan, S. (1994). Business horizons . Retrieved from findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1038/is_nl_v37/ai_14922926.

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AT&T says cell service is back after a widespread outage and some disrupted 911 calls

Scott Neuman

international business assignment questions

A sign is posted in front of an AT&T retail store in 2021 in San Rafael, Calif. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images hide caption

A sign is posted in front of an AT&T retail store in 2021 in San Rafael, Calif.

AT&T says it has fully restored cellphone service to tens of thousands of customers in cities across the country whose phones lost signal overnight, causing frustration and concern about disruptions to 911 dispatches.

The FBI, in a statement Thursday afternoon, said the agency was "in contact with AT&T regarding today's network outage. Should we learn of any malicious activity we will respond accordingly."

White House national security spokesperson John Kirby also referred to the outage as he addressed reporters on Thursday. Kirby said the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) were looking into the outage. He said the Federal Communications Commission was also in touch with AT&T.

"But the bottom line is we don't have all the answers," he said.

Around 3:30 a.m. ET Thursday, outages reported by downdetector.com suddenly spiked from just a handful, peaking at more than 73,000 by around 8:20 a.m. ET.

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Why do doctors still use pagers, "we sincerely apologize".

By late afternoon Eastern time, AT&T said it had "restored wireless service to all our affected customers."

"We sincerely apologize to them," the company said in an email to NPR. "Keeping our customers connected remains our top priority, and we are taking steps to ensure our customers do not experience this again in the future."

Kirby said the Department of Commerce faced some disruptions as a result of the outage but those were not "crippling."

Earlier, Downdetector said that Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, Chicago, Indianapolis, New York, Miami and Charlotte reported the highest number of outages. Houston had more than 2,000 reports by about 8:30 a.m. ET, while New York reported about 1,300.

However, service disruptions caused concern Thursday morning even outside those areas, with the San Francisco Fire Department announcing on X , formerly Twitter, that it was "aware of an issue impacting AT&T wireless customers from making and receiving any phone calls (including to 911)."

How do cheap cell phone plans make money? And other questions

The Indicator from Planet Money

How do cheap cell phone plans make money and other questions.

"We are actively engaged and monitoring this. The San Francisco 911 center is still operational. If you are an AT&T customer and cannot get through to 911, then please try calling from a landline. If that is not an option then please try to get ahold of a friend or family member who is a customer of a different carrier and ask them to call 911 on your behalf. Do not call or text 911 to simply test your phone service," the department said.

A survey conducted by the National Center for Health Statistics found in 2022 that nearly 71% of adults and 82% of children lived in wireless-only households.

Even if a cellular service provider is down, anyone with a cellphone can still place an emergency call or text, according to 911.gov . "However, calls to 911 on phones without active service do not deliver the caller's location to the 911 call center, and the call center cannot call these phones back to find out the caller's location or the nature of the emergency. If disconnected, the 911 center has no way to call back the caller," the website says.

Jared Juliano, assistant director for Prince William County Department of Public Safety Communications in Virginia, says 911 service there was never really disrupted, but calls coming in from AT&T phones did not have location information or what he describes as an "advanced caller ID."

988: An Alternative To 911 For Mental Health

988: An Alternative To 911 For Mental Health

However, he says 911 dispatchers "always verify a location even when we get locations from these numbers."

Police in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg area in North Carolina said customers were "briefly unable to contact 9-1-1. There are no disruptions to our call center's ability to receive 9-1-1 calls. Service should be returning shortly."

Other providers reported business as usual

The outage did not appear to have any real impact on other providers. Verizon said its network was "operating normally."

"Some customers experienced issues this morning when calling or texting with customers served by another carrier," a company statement said.

Likewise, T-Mobile said in a statement that its network "is operating normally."

The outages occurred around the same time as a solar flare, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The agency said the flare — "an eruption of energy from the Sun that usually lasts from minutes to hours" — reached Earth at 1:32 a.m. ET.

NOAA says such flares can affect high-frequency radio signals, but only on the sunlit side of Earth.

  • Cell phones

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