Control
LOCATION OF DECISION MAKING Any firm must determine where decisions will be made on such diverse questions as product policy, the acquisition of funds, and placement of liquid assets. The higher the level within the organization decisions are made, the more they are considered to be centralized; the lower the level, the more they...
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ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE As a firm develops international business activities, its corporate structure must adapt to the changing environment in order to accommodate foreign operations effectively. The organizational structure that emerges will depend on many factors, including the location and type of foreign facilities, the impact of international operations on total corporate performance, the nature...
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PLANNING Throughout this text we have emphasized the firm’s need to adapt its unique resources and objectives to the different and changing foreign situations. This is the essence of planning. Without planning, it is only by luck that a company picks the best order and method of expansion by country. Without planning, it is...
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BUSINESS RESEARCH usiness research is undertaken to reduce uncertainties in the decision pro- cesS/t0 expand or narrow the alternatives under consideration, and to assess the merits of existing programs. The reduction of uncertainty would include attempts to answer such questions as: Is there a market for the product? Can qualified personnel be hired? Will...
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CORPORATE CULTURE Any corporation has certain common values its employees share. These constitute the corporate culture and form a control mechanism that is implicit and that helps enforce the explicit bureaucratic control mechanisms that the firm has in place.24 International firms have more difficulty relying on the corporate culture for control because managers from...
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