International Business: Opportunities and Challenges in a 

Flattening World, 1e
By Mason Carpenter and Sanjyot P. Dunung

© Mason Carpenter 2011, published by Flat World Knowledge 1-1

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© Mason Carpenter 2011, published by Flat World Knowledge 1-2

 Chapter 1
Introduction

© Mason Carpenter 2011, published by Flat World Knowledge 1-3

 Learning Objectives
1-4

 Know the definition of international business

 Comprehend how strategic management is related to
international business
 Understand how entrepreneurship is related to international
business
 Know who has an interest in international business
 Understand what a stakeholder is and why stakeholder analysis
might be important in the study of international business

© Mason Carpenter 2011, published by Flat

 Learning Objectives
1-5

 Recognize that an organization’s stakeholders include more than

its suppliers and customers
 Know the possible forms that international businesses can take
 Understand the differences between exporting, importing, and
foreign direct investment
 See how governments and nongovernmental organizations can
be international businesses
 Understand the flattening world perspective in the globalization
debate

© Mason Carpenter 2011, published by Flat

 Learning Objectives
1-6

 Understand the multidomestic perspective in the globalization

debate
 Know the dimensions of the CAGE analytical framework
 Learn about the field of ethics
 Gain a general understanding of business ethics
 See why business ethics might be more challenging in
international settings

© Mason Carpenter 2011, published by Flat

 The Definition of International Business
1-7

Globalization: The shift toward a more

interdependent and integrated global economy
 In terms of markets:
 Trade barriers are falling and buyer preferences are changing
 In terms of production:
 Where a company can source goods and services easily from
other countries

© Mason Carpenter 2011, published by Flat

 The Definition of International Business
1-8

 International business: All cross-border exchanges of

goods, services, or resources between two or more nations
 These exchanges can go beyond the exchange of money for physical
goods to include international transfers of other resources, such as
people, intellectual property, and contractual assets or liabilities
 The entities involved in international business:
 Large multinational firms with thousands of employees doing
business in many countries around the world
 A small one-person company acting as an importer or exporter

© Mason Carpenter 2011, published by Flat

 Strategic Management and Entrepreneurship
1-9

 Strategic management: The body of knowledge that answers questions

about the development and implementation of good strategies; mainly
concerned with the determinants of firm performance
 Strategy: The central, integrated, and externally oriented concept of
how an organization will achieve its performance objectives

© Mason Carpenter 2011, published by Flat

 Strategic Management and Entrepreneurship
1-10

 Basic tool of strategy – SWOT assessment

 SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats): A strategic
management tool that helps an organization:
 Take stock of its internal characteristics—strengths and weaknesses
 Assess its external environmental conditions—opportunities and threats—
that favor or threaten the organization’s strategy

© Mason Carpenter 2011, published by Flat

 Strategic Management and Entrepreneurship
1-11

 Entrepreneurship: The recognition of opportunities (needs,

wants, problems, and challenges) and the use or creation of
resources to implement innovative ideas for new, thoughtfully
planned ventures
 Entrepreneur: A person who engages in entrepreneurship
 Intrapreneurship: A form of entrepreneurship that takes place
in a business that is already in existence
 Intrapreneur: A person within an established business who
takes direct responsibility for turning an idea into a profitable
finished product through assertive risk taking and innovation

© Mason Carpenter 2011, published by Flat

 Who is Interested in International Business?
1-12

 Individuals or organizations will have an interest in international

business if it affects them in some way—positively or negatively
 Stakeholder: An individual or organization whose interests may
be affected as the result of what another individual or
organization does
 Stakeholder analysis: A technique used to identify and assess
the importance of key people, groups of people, or institutions
that may significantly influence the success of an activity,
project, or business

© Mason Carpenter 2011, published by Flat

 The Forms of International Business
1-13

 Business: A person or organization engaged in commerce

with the aim of achieving a profit
 Importer: A person or organization that sells products and services
that are sourced from other countries
 Exporter: A person or organization that sells products and services
in foreign countries that are sourced from the home country
 Foreign direct investment: The investment of foreign assets into
domestic structures, equipment, and organizations
 Location advantages: Advantages due to choice of foreign markets
and can include better access to raw materials, less costly labor,
key suppliers, key customers, energy, and natural resources
© Mason Carpenter 2011, published by Flat
 Table 1.1 - Sample Three-Part Mission
Statement
1-14

© Mason Carpenter 2011, published by Flat

 The Forms of International Business
1-15

 Government: The body of people that sets and administers public policy and
exercises executive, political, and sovereign power through customs,
institutions, and laws within a state, country, or other political unit
 Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs): Any nonprofit, voluntary citizens’
group that is organized on a local, national, or international level

© Mason Carpenter 2011, published by Flat

 The Globalization Debate
1-16

 It is a stark difference of opinion on how the

internationalization of businesses is affecting countries’
cultural, consumer, and national identities—and whether these
changes are desirable
 The shift toward a more interdependent and integrated global
economy is fueled largely by
 Declining trade and investment barriers
 New technologies, such as the Internet
 The globalization debate surrounds whether and how fast
markets are actually merging together

© Mason Carpenter 2011, published by Flat

 We Live in a Flat World
1-17

 Flat-world view: A metaphor for viewing the world as a level playing

field in terms of commerce, where all competitors have an equal
opportunity
 Multidomestic view: A metaphor for viewing the world’s markets as
being more different than similar, such that the playing field differs in
respective markets

© Mason Carpenter 2011, published by Flat

 We Live in a Flat World
1-18

 According to Thomas Friedman:

 Globalization 1.0 - Columbus’s discovery of the New World and ran
from 1492 to about 1800
 Globalization 2.0 - From about 1800 to 2000, was disrupted by the
Great Depression and both World Wars and was largely shaped by
the emerging power of huge, multinational corporations
 Globalization 3.0 - Major software advances have allowed an
unprecedented number of people worldwide to work together with
unlimited potential

© Mason Carpenter 2011, published by Flat

 How the World Got Flat
1-19

Friedman identifies ten major events that helped

reshape the modern world and make it flat:
 11/9/89: When the walls came down and the windows went up
 8/9/95: When Netscape went public
 Work-flow software: Let’s do lunch; Have your application talk to
my application
 Open-sourcing: Self-organizing, collaborative communities
 Outsourcing: Y2K

© Mason Carpenter 2011, published by Flat

 How the World Got Flat
1-20

 Offshoring: Running with gazelles, eating with lions

 Supply-chaining: Eating sushi in Arkansas
 Insourcing: What the guys in funny brown shorts are really doing
 In-forming: Google, Yahoo!, MSN Web Search
 The Steroids: Digital, mobile, personal, and virtual

© Mason Carpenter 2011, published by Flat

 How the World Got Flat
1-21

 The ten factors had powerful roles in making the world smaller, but
each worked in isolation until the convergence of three more powerful
forces
 New software and increased public familiarity with the Internet
 The incorporation of that knowledge into business and personal communication
 The market influx of billions of people from Asia and the former Soviet Union who
want to become more prosperous—fast

© Mason Carpenter 2011, published by Flat

 We Live in a Multidomestic World, Not a Flat One!
1-22

 International business professor Pankaj Ghemawat characterizes

the world as as “semiglobalized” and “multidomestic”
 CAGE framework: The analytical framework used to understand
country and regional differences along the distance dimensions
of culture, administration, geography, and economics

© Mason Carpenter 2011, published by Flat

 Ethics and International Business
1-23

 Ethics: A branch of philosophy that seeks virtue and

morality, addressing questions about “right” and “wrong”
behavior for people in a variety of settings; the standards
of behavior that tell how human beings ought to act
 Business ethics: The branch of business that examines
various kinds of activities and asks, “Is this business
conduct ethically right or wrong?”

© Mason Carpenter 2011, published by Flat

 What Ethics is Not
1-24

 Two of the biggest challenges to identifying ethical standards

 What the standards should be based on?
 How we apply those standards in specific situations?

© Mason Carpenter 2011, published by Flat