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.