OK. Approaching the last week...

It's the last week of class (yay!) and everyone has pretty well satisfied the blogging commitment with quality posts that are insightful, a little bold, and delving into deeper waters than is typically the case. Good job. If you want to go beyond, here's the next question - - - -

Now that we've look at international perspectives from the firm level, the environmental level, and next week the practical level, in your opinion are current events like the Euro (Neuro?) crisis, China's surge onto the world scene, rebellion and death in Syria that threatens to destabilize, and a threatening Iran (and a threatening to forcefully respond Israel) leading indicators of firm and environmental responses or are they lagging indicators? Both? It depends? Neither? Are current events important or are they simply moderating variables to a firm's core strategy and attenuators to perception and action in the transnational, international, global or exporting firm?

February 8th, 2012

Wow! You all are doing a wonderful job with this communication pattern and most people have gone well beyond the assignment. Good job! That certainly scores a great deal toward intellection participation and attachment to the material, which is something I wanted to accomplish through this venue.

With the previous post note (feel free to add to that million dollar question.....) take a stab at this one - what is the importance of corporate social responsibility and sustainability to our understanding of international perspectives in management. Does it matter or is it a consideration in making that jump from exporting to joint ventures or greenfield operations? Otherwise, it is just a claim that stakeholders would make as part of their perspective on business?

Entry mode dynamics and emerging markets..

Chaps 11-15b highlight entry mode dynamics, remember they must be CAGE consistent of at least distance achievable, meaningful (e.g. RATS), and in line with firms specific advantages. Given that in mind how would you evaluate the description of entry mode dynamics, the role of emerging economies, and the moderating factors of social responsibility and sustainability? Take a stab at this one, it's going to be your thoughts - you don't have to parrot what's written in Verbeke, you should however, say what you THINK (which is what this class is trying to achieve, and judging from the posts, you're there).

Week 5, a million dollar question on error.

Think about the last few weeks.... you've encountered and have been asked to consider models which assert that firm specific advantages; the arbitrage of differences; the analysis of cultural, administrative, geographic, and economic differences; and analyzing differences across cultures (among others to be encountered yet). The materials all have one thing in common - they seem to be linear; for example, if you were to create an accurate or favorable typology for CAGE, you should be able to address markets that are different than your own. Also, if you were to address and measure cultural and economic difference across cultures as a measure of distance and effort, your firm should be successful. Do you believe that? To what extent does chaos, complexity, or "error" (which you learned in statistics) play a role in varying your outcomes and plans? How would you assess that before starting the effort, and better yet, how would you determine if when it happened, and how would you fix it once the rat is out of the box.