Exam 4: Managing in a Global Environment

Jeff Elliott is on a flight across the Pacific and is excited about his first business trip to Asia. Born and raised in Alberta, Jeff is a manager for a rapidly growing Calgary-based company. His current mission is to scout out potential locations in Asia and develop an international expansion strategy for his company. There are many options, including maintaining the business's head office in Canada and sending over company representatives when necessary or developing a separate company in Asia and hiring locals to manage the business. Jeff's trip will take him to Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and China. He is looking forward to learning more about the business practices and customs of each country and is not too worried about the fact that he only speaks English. Jeff has heard that English is considered the main international business language, and he anticipates that most Asians will be able to speak it. -If Jeff's company eliminated country-designated locations and reorganized based on industry groups,it would best be described as a ________.

A potential advantage of the geocentric attitude is ________.

The WTO is a global organization that evolved from ________.

According to the GLOBE rankings presented in our textbook,Canada,Denmark,and Netherlands all rank high on which cultural dimension?

As a manager at a growing Canadian company, Samantha has been asked to develop a strategy to expand the company's operations into the European market. Although the company president has provided some basic guidelines about acceptable levels of risk and investment, there are still many factors in the legal-political, economic, and cultural environments that Samantha must take into consideration in her proposal. -Samantha begins to explore expansion opportunities in England and France because of language similarities with the Canadian market and also because her Canadian managers are used to legal and political systems that are ________.

The primary reason for the creation of the EU was to allow Europe to assert its position against the industrial strengths of the U.S.and Japan.

A manager who wishes to be successful in international business should avoid a(n)________ attitude.

In a short essay,describe and discuss the differing global attitudes that influence managerial and organizational behaviour.

People in societies with ________ tend to be more comfortable with risks and more tolerant of different opinions.

Which of the following statements is TRUE regarding the European Union?

Parochialism is the tendency to view the world narrowly through one's own perspective.

________ is a cultural measure of the degree to which people tolerate risk and unconventional behaviour.

Managers with an ethnocentric attitude concentrate on their ________.

Which of the following definitions best describes a transnational organization?

Bill Sanderson,a manager in a manufacturing firm in Toronto,has a tendency to view the world solely through his Canadian perspective.What can be deduced about his attitude?

With its focus on control from the home country,the global company reflects a polycentric attitude.

The European Free Trade Association (EFTA)is ________.

Multidomestic corporations ________.

John has done well in his company. In only five years, he has risen to the position of divisional manager. However, he knows that in order to rise to the level of senior management, he needs to spend some time managing abroad in his company's foreign subsidiaries. Although he has travelled to foreign countries on business and vacations, he has never lived abroad, and he wonders what cultural differences he would find. He is considering applying for a new foreign-based position, but he first wants to learn about some of the basic differences between managing in Canada and managing in a foreign country. John researched the topic of international management and found many helpful facts about various countries and their people. But perhaps the most interesting model he found was the GLOBE framework for assessing cultural differences. Using data from thousands of managers in 62 countries, the GLOBE research team identified several dimensions on which national cultures differ. As John reviewed the GLOBE rankings, he began to appreciate why managers on foreign assignments need to be incredibly sensitive to cultural differences! -John learned that the cultural dimension of ________ measures the degree to which a society relies on social norms and procedures to alleviate the unpredictability of future events.

Borderless organizations approach global business with a(n)________ attitude.