Cross-Cultural Difference's Impact on International Business Negotiation

Cross-culture is the most important character of international business negotiation, just because of this difference in culture caused some cultural clash or conflict in international business negotiation, and most of the negotiation ended up in failure because of this. So to know about both party's cultural background,avoid some conflicts caused by cultural difference is critical to a successful international business negotiation. This article begins with cultural difference, talk about the cultural difference's impact on international business negotiation,give some examples to show that the understanding of cultural difference is important in international business negotiation. At the end, the article tell us that when we are negotiating we must take well care about cultural difference, know different culture, choose the best plan and strategy, so we can well understand each other, each other's advantage and disadvantage to gain win-win cooperation.     

Strategic Options in the Digital Era

The collapse of the dot-com euphoria coupled with the downturn in the business cycle is driving many firms to abandon their high-growth strategies in favor of current earnings. This article argues that, whilst hedging against adverse future conditions, firms must retain an ability to seize up-side business benefits by framing IT investments as strategic options. The authors use three illustrative examples to develop a strategic management process that they term the "Strategic Options Navigator". They conclude by drawing implications for CEOs, CIOs and CFOs.     

Cooperative strategies in international business and management: Reflections on the past 50 years and future directions

Over the past 50 years, cooperative forms of governance such as equity joint ventures and other strategic alliances have received tremendous attention in international business and management research. This article traces the history of this research over these past five decades with particular emphasis on the critical role that (Columbia) Journal of World Business has played in disseminating scholarly and managerial expertise on the successful management of cross-border, inter-firm collaboration. We highlight the evolution of interest in different contexts, phenomena, theories, and methodologies, along with the factors that have driven interest in these topics. Several suggestions for future research are also provided.     

Changing Paradigms of International Entrepreneurship Strategy

This article identifies sweeping transformations taking place in the contemporary international business environment, and discusses their impact on international entrepreneurship. We focus on two overarching trends: (1) the demise of the nation-state as the relevant unit around which international business activity is organised and conducted; and (2) the demise of the stand-alone firm, with a hierarchic distribution of power and control, as the principal unit of business competition. We then discuss an alternate approach to internationalisation: one that involves a multi-polar distribution of power and control. Traditional approaches to internationalisation focus on the hierarchic centralised firm, with a uni-polar distribution of power and control. We suggest that the world is moving towards multi-polar networks of firms, involved in what we term symbiotic management: each entity benefits from working together within a multi-polar network. This includes large corporations as well as small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). As corporations out-source to specialised firms–increasingly SMEs–power and control are dispersed among independently owned firms that are cooperating voluntarily for increased efficiency and profit. The new paradigm moves from a focus on the firm, towards a focus on relationships within multi-polar networks. We conclude by illustrating how this emerging competitive paradigm may impact on the strategic management of small firms, with examples from a real-world company.     

A multidimensional perspective of SME internationalization speed: The influence of entrepreneurial characteristics

This paper contributes to a multidimensional perspective on the speed of SME internationalization. It examines the influence of entrepreneurial characteristics – experience, rationales and innovation strategies – on multiple dimensions of internationalization speed. Findings from a sample of 180 SMEs show that earliness, speed of deepening, and speed of geographic diversification can be viewed as three different strategic alternatives and that each dimension is predicted by a different set of entrepreneurial antecedents. Earliness of internationalization is associated with entrepreneurs’ international business experience and their perception of opportunities abroad as well as preference for an innovation strategy characterized by ambidextrous innovation. Speed of deepening is related to entrepreneurs’ international business experience, their orientation towards differentiation vis-à-vis competitors, and commitment to innovation and a strategy focusing on exploration. These results indicate the importance of distinguishing between different forms of innovation. Speed of geographic diversification is predicted only by entrepreneurs’ orientation towards differentiation vis-à-vis competitors.     

Strategic capabilities and the emergence of the global factory: Omron in China

Omron Shanghai provides a detailed case study of a multinational subsidiary's long-term evolution. The study assesses three streams of international business literature that emphasize the seemingly competing roles of parent firm strategy, national institutions or local management in the development of subsidiaries. It looks at each business function separately to reveal which capabilities were effectively transferred from Japan to China. In tracing Omron Shanghai's development from international joint venture into wholly owned enterprise and then global factory, it is the strategic intent of the parent multinational corporations that emerges as the consistent formative influence on management practices and capabilities.     

Building trust in international alliances

Two facts stand out unambiguously in today's global business. One, international alliances are proliferating, underscoring the strategic importance managers increasingly attach to “competition through cooperation.” Two, trust is key to successful international alliances. Together, these two facts point to the need to better understand trust, a task that was attempted in an earlier article (Parkhe, 1998). Yet such understanding, while necessary, is not sufficient. This article, the second of a two-part series, shows how partners can proactively manage an alliance relationship in order to develop trust. Toward this goal, the discussion includes trust generation through process-based, characteristic-based, and institutional-based mechanisms, which are to a significant degree within alliance managers' control. Managers must also be mindful of several critical features of alliance dynamics. These are described in some detail, as is the need to appropriately “calibrate” trust level in an alliance to the lifecycle stage of the alliance. With proper management attention, too much and too little trust can be avoided.     

The Great Recession of 2008: Impact on the Bangladeshi economy and international business implications

This article examines the current global financial crisis (GFC) and its impact on Bangladesh's economy and discusses international business implications for the country within an institution‐based analytical framework. The article finds that the macroeconomy of Bangladesh has shown remarkable resilience in the face of this massive global crisis, and the impact has been minimal and limited to a moderate slowdown of the economy The country thus could be poised for taking advantage of international business opportunities as the global economy begins to recover. Further, JPMorgan's Frontier Five and Goldman Sachs's Next Eleven classification of Bangladesh indicates enormous potential for growth and development. The article suggests that the Bangladeshi diaspora could serve as a connecting hub so that “brain gain” could be achieved through labor migration and remittances. Strategic alliances among home and foreign firms are also important to the future capacity building of the country. However, strategic management in the form of further institutional, structural, and policy reforms are critical in enabling the country to develop an international‐business‐friendly environment conducive to taking advantage of evolving global opportunities and realizing its full potential. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

美国经验视角下我国海关贸易便利化制度的完善

我国除传统的通关便利外已经先后实施了以海关风险管理制度、海关企业分类管理制度等为代表的贸易便利化制度,取得了相当大的成绩,但也存在着不小的差距。本文选择美国海关贸易便利化制度的特点作为参照物,针对我国海关贸易便利化制度中的指导思想、海关与商界关系以及海关国际合作等问题展开对比分析,提出我国海关应当确立贸易便利与贸易安全平衡发展的指导思想、海关与商界之间应当构建"伙伴关系"以及深化海关国际合作并积极推动我国海关贸易便利化制度国际化。     

Ethical Rationality: A Strategic Approach to Organizational Crisis

In this paper, we present an ethical and strategic approach to managing organizational crises. The proposed crisis management model (1) offers a new approach to guide an organization’s strategic and ethical response to crisis, and (2) provides a two-by-two framework for classifying organizational crises. The ethically rational approach to crisis draws upon strategic rationality, crisis, and ethics literature to understand and address organizational crises. Recent examples of corporate crises are employed to illustrate the theoretical claims advanced. Finally, the paper provides guidelines for a morally optimal outcome for the organization and its stakeholders. Peter Snyder is a Ph.D. student in Organizations and Strategic Management at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. His research interests include strategy making and corporate governance. Molly Hall is an attorney who practices international and environmental law in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She teaches adjunct courses in business ethics, environmental policy, and the European Union. Joline Robertson is a Ph.D. candidate in Organizations and Strategic Management at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Her research interests include international business. Tomasz Jasinski is a Ph.D. student in Organizations and Strategic Management at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. His research interests include strategic alliances. Janice S. Miller received her Ph.D. from Arizona State Univerity in Business Administration with a concentration in Human Resource management. She has been on the faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee UWM since 1996 and has served as the Associate Dean for Academic Programs in the School of Business Administration since 2002. Dr. Miller’s primary research interests include performance management, compensation and ethical issues in organizations.     

Measures of strategic alliance performance,classified and assessed

Over the last three decades, strategic alliance performance has been an important research topic within the international business and management fields. Researchers have investigated a number of factors explaining performance but often find diverging results. Scholars have suggested that one reason may be that different performance measures are used as the dependent variable. But which differences exist and how can they matter? Against this backdrop, the present study makes three main contributions. First, we identify dimensions that illustrate differences and similarities between performance measures and provide a simple yet comprehensive classification of the different performance measures used in 167 empirical studies in the literature. Second, we suggest how differences in performance measures may influence construct validity under different circumstances. Third, we show that the differences have empirical implications for the results researchers get when using the measures. The study implications serve to improve researchers’ ability to choose performance measures that are appropriate in a given situation and to help them assess the influence the choice of performance measure may have on tests of hypotheses regarding antecedents’ influence on performance.     

基于粤港澳大湾区人才需求的国际商务专业课程教学改革研究 ——以国际商务概论为例

国际商务概论作为学生进入国际商务专业学习的第一门专业课,同时也是国际商务专业课的先修课程与基础课程,对于国际商务专业的重要性不言而喻,但国际商务概论存在着教材内容更新慢等不足,从优化师资团队、丰富教学内容、加强校企合作等三个方面提出了相应的改革方案。     

Analyzing the Structure of the International Business Curriculum in India

This article analyzes the structure of the international business curriculum through a questionnaire-based survey among current students and young managers who are studying or have studied international business courses in one of the top B-Schools of India. Respondents have the opinion that international business is more than internationalization of different functional areas and is to be treated as a separate academic discipline. In the context of pedagogy, respondents feel the need for more elective courses on international business and prefer learning through different methods such as foreign country visits, simulation, and role playing activities.     

Searching for New Forms of Legitimacy Through Corporate Responsibility Rhetoric

This article looks into the process of searching for new forms of legitimacy among firms through corporate discourse. Through the analysis of annual sustainability reports, we have determined the existence of three types of rhetoric: (1) strategic (embedded in the scientific-economic paradigm); (2) institutional (based on the fundamental constructs of Corporate Social Responsibility theories); and (3) dialectic (which aims at improving the discursive quality between the corporations and their stakeholders). Each one of these refers to a different form of legitimacy and is based on distinct theories of the firm analyzed in this article. We claim that dialectic rhetoric seems to signal a new understanding of the firm’s role in society and a search for moral legitimation. However, this new form of rhetoric is still fairly uncommon although its use is growing. Combining theory and business examples, this article may help managers and researchers in the conceptualization of how firms make sense of their role in society and what forms of differentiation they strive for through their rhetoric strategies.     

Changing patterns of global staffing in the multinational enterprise: Challenges to the conventional expatriate assignment and emerging alternatives

We argue that many MNCs continue to underestimate the complexities involved in global staffing and that organisations and academics must take a more strategic view of staffing arrangements in an international context. We suggest that the context for the management and handling of the international assignment has altered significantly, leading in some quarters to a fundamental reassessment of the contribution of, and prospects for, the international assignment as conventionally understood. We explore a variety of supply side issues, cost issues, demand side issues and career issues as triggers to this reassessment. Alongside the conventional expatriate assignment, we point to the emergence of a portfolio of alternatives to the traditional international assignment including short-term assignments, commuter assignments, international business travel and virtual assignments. In the context of these developments, we argue that a standardised approach to international assignments is untenable and that it is essential to develop HR policies and procedures that reflect differences in the various forms of emerging alternative international assignments and their associated complexities. Here recruitment and selection, training, reward, and occupational health and safety issues and implications are all explored.     

Of bears, bumble-bees, and spiders: the role of expatriates in controlling foreign subsidiaries

This article investigates the role of expatriate managers in multinational companies. We discuss three key organizational functions of expatriation: position filling, management development, and organization development. In the last function, organization development, international transfers are used as an informal coordination and control strategy through socialization and the building of informal communication networks. The article explores this role of international transfers in greater detail, but also discusses a more formal way in which expatriates can control subsidiaries. The following metaphors for these different control functions of expatriation are introduced: “bear” (formal direct control), “bumble-bee” (socialization), and “spider” (informal communication). A large-scale mail survey offers empirical evidence for the bear, bumble-bee and spider roles and shows under which circumstances they are most effective. Being aware of the different control functions of expatriation and the circumstances under which they are most effective can help managers to use expatriate assignments as a more strategic tool.     

International Exploitation of Domestic R&D Exploration: New Insights from Russian Manufacturing Firms

In this paper, we approach R&D cooperation and international market expansion from an exploration-exploitation perspective and look how various domestic R&D partners affect international market expansion activities in Russian firms. Our findings, based on a data survey of 206 manufacturing companies, show that different partners affect differently when it comes to market expansion and that their effect depends on a number of things such as the proximity of the international market. Using the exploration-exploitation approach, we are able to explain the phenomenon in more detail and so contribute to the existing international business and innovation management literature.     

Leading a multinational is history in practice: The use of invented traditions and narratives at AkzoNobel,Shell, Philips and ABN AMRO

This article states that the distinctiveness of business history and its convincingness can be improved by the concept of invented tradition and narrative. After a theoretical overview it suggests that the narrative approach explains the way leaders operate in practice. It argues that with a narrative approach one sees that history is used by business leaders in four different ways: as a source to create traditions and symbols as means of communication, as a way to understand and strengthen the identity of the organisation, as means to create corporate memory and as a tool to connect past, present and future. The examples are taken from a Dutch oral history project on management behaviour at multinationals.     

The integrated use of social media,digital, and traditional communication tools in the B2B sales process of international SMEs

Social media and digital tools are gradually changing the way firms market themselves. Understanding how these communication tools are used by sales functions within business-to-business (B2B) markets could clarify the dynamics underpinning the sales process in an increasingly technology-mediated world. This paper explores how social media, digital, and traditional sales communication tools are leveraged during the three main phases of the B2B sales process within international SMEs.The article’s grounded-theory approach illustrates that social media can be particularly helpful in engaging international prospects. Digital communication tools seem to be most prevalent in the persuasion phase, whereas more traditional communication tools still prevail in customer relationship management. However, there seem to be some important potential boundary conditions, including relationship culture, location proximity, technology innovation/resources, and strategic importance of the customer that affect the way international SMEs use different communication tools during a sales process. We develop a framework for understanding the B2B sales process flow with sales communication tools included for international SMEs.     

Determinant factors of failures of international retailers in foreign markets

Abstract

This article seeks to identify why international retail chains (IRCs) sometimes fail to successfully establish operations in foreign markets. The study focuses on the quality of managerial decision-making as a cause of failure. Four such causes are identified relating to the quality of: (1) strategic decision-making, (2) tactical decision-making, (3) decision-making by the management of the local entity (LE), and (4) cooperation between the IRC and its LE. Based on survey data from Israel, we find that causes (1), (3) and (4) are most critical. These results highlight that to avoid retail failure, strategic decisions, such as ensuring clear, distinct and superior values adapted to local consumer preferences, should take precedence over tactical ones. Furthermore, to ensure high quality of local management and smooth cooperation with their LEs, IRCs should strive to control local management and coordination mechanisms.