Fons Trompenaars is the author who belongs to dutch he is one the author of cross cultural communications. Fons studied economics from free university of Amsterdam and he got hid PhD from Wharton school. Trompenaars and Charles hampden have developed a culture which have seven dimensions. Five of his dimensions covers the way in which people interact with each other. The seven dimensions of culture by Trompenaars are explained below. 1. Universalism (vs. Particularism) Universalism/particularism distinguishes societies based on the relative importance they place on rules and laws as opposed to personal relationships. The basic question is: “What is more important–rules or relationships?” Members of universalistic societies focus more on rules, codes, values and standards and believe that they take precedence over the needs and claims of friends and other personal relationships; believe that rules or laws can be applied to everyone and should be used to determine what isContinue reading
International Business
International Business Management deals with the maintenance and development of a multinational operation across national borders, whose manager has the knowledge and the skills to manage and handle cross-cultural processes, stakeholders and business environments in a right way.
Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions
Dr. Greet Hofsted had conducted a comprehensive study and explained how culture influences the values at the work place. He worked as a psychologist in IBM from 1967 to 1973. In the time of working in IBM he has collected the analyzed data from aver 100000 individual from more than forty different countries. To the above study he made some additions and he developed four dimensions and later on he added fifth dimension that is long term outlook. Geert Hofstede’s dimensions investigation can support the trade individual in enhance understanding the intercultural variance within regions. “Culture is more often a source of conflict than of synergy. Cultural differences are a nuisance at best and often a disaster.” – Dr. Geert Hofstede The different dimensions of the Geert hofstede are explained below they are Power distance index (PDI) Individualism (IDV) Masculinity (MAS) Uncertainty avoidance index (UAI) Long term orientation (LTO) PowerContinue reading
Standardization and Adaptation of International Business
By the growth of business when companies starts their operations in other countries they are called global or international companies, at that time of growth their business strategies that being used in their home countries are no more effective, since global business dynamics are different from local business environment and local business objectives are different from global business objectives, there is a need to have a global business strategy that is not able to achieve global business objectives but also able to make the organization perform in home country, at the same time that strategy should be able to meet short term and long term goals of the organization, while looking at goals shorts term goals can be managing cash flows, revenue targets, market share and cost management and long term goals can be having sustainable competitive advantage and brand building leading to continued profits and growth. While looking atContinue reading
Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) – Concept, Benefits and Weakness
For a sustainable growth and economic development of a country, innovation and creativity is a very important dimension. Industries and the global markets of the 21st century rest on the intellectual property protection as it is one of the central public policy. By the mid-1990s, a minimum global standard for IPR had been preserved in the WTO Charter through the incorporation of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). The transfer in international economic policy and the lowering of tariff and non-tariff trade barriers to the embrace of strong IPR is genuinely an issue of controversy. Intellectual property rights (IPR) are legal claims settled by governments within their relevant sovereignties that grant trademark, patents and owners of copyright the exclusive right to exploit their intellectual property for a certain period. The fundamental right for IPR protection is to provide an incentive for innovation by granting IP ownersContinue reading
Competitive Advantages of International Business
Competition has always been central to the agenda of firms. It has become one of the enduring themes of our times and the rising intensity of competition has continued until this day thereby spreading to more and more countries. As a result of globalization, most industries with the topics of international business and competitive advantage have received much attention from business executives, public policy makers and scholars in recent years. This; in conjunction with the rise of global competitors has helped to explain why a country’s competitive advantage can be determined by the strength of its business firms. This has resulted in numerous rankings, where industries and firms are compared on a global scale to see which are the most competitive. Most firms prefer to compete in the business environment so that it will help determine the competitive advantage of the country in which they operate. A firm’s ability toContinue reading
Inventory Management Practices in Multinational Corporations
Inventory in the form of raw materials, work in process or finished goods is held; to facilitate the production process by both ensuring that supplies are at hand when needed and allowing a more even rate of production and to make certain that goods are available for delivery at the time of sale. Although, conceptually, the inventory management problems faced by multinational firms are not unique, they may be exaggerated in the case of foreign operations. For instance, MNCs typically find it more difficult to control their overseas inventory and realize inventory turnover objectives. There are a variety of reasons: long and variable transit times if ocean transportation is used, lengthy customs proceedings, dock strikes, import controls, higher duties, supply disruption, and anticipated changes in currency values. Advanced Inventory Purchases In many developing countries, forward contracts for foreign currency are limited in availability or the nonexistent. In addition, restrictions oftenContinue reading