Professional Documents
Culture Documents
CHAPTER 1
Globalization and International Business
1. What are international business and globalization? What is the relationship between them?
2. Why should you study international business?
3. Explain how globalization has changed over time and differs both among countries and
within countries.
4. Identify and explain the seven forces that have been causing the growth in globalization.
5. How is technology affecting the growth of international business?
6. Why have most governments lowered restrictions on international trade?
7. What is the relationship between competition and globalization?
8. Why do countries cooperate with other countries? How does this cooperation affect
international business?
9. What are the main criticisms of globalization?
10. What is meant by off-shoring? What are the major arguments for and against it?
11. Why do companies engage (What advantages do they gain?) in international business?
12. Define and give examples of merchandise and service imports and exports.
13. What are the types of foreign investment?
14. What is a multinational enterprise (MNE)?
15. What do we mean by a company’s physical and societal environments? Why should
companies understand them when engaging in international business?
16. How does a company’s competitive environment affect its international operations? How
might its competitive environment differ from one country to another?
17. What are the three main viewpoints about the future of globalization?
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CHAPTER 2
The Cultural Environments Facing Business
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CHAPTER 3
The Political and Legal Environment
1. What is the individualistic paradigm and how does it influence how governments
intervene in the economy?
2. What is the collectivist paradigm and how does it influence how governments
intervene in the economy?
3. What is a political ideology?
4. What are the fundamental features and elements of a democracy?
5. What are the fundamental features and elements of a totalitarian system?
6. What are the types of a totalitarian political system? What differentiates them from
each other?
7. What sorts of political systems exist in the world today? What conditions have spurred
political change? How do political systems change and evolve?
8. What is meant by political risk? What are the major causes and costs of political risk?
9. What are the characteristics of an active versus passive approach to managing
political risk?
10. What is the role and function of a legal system?
11. What are the principal types of legal systems?
12. How does a country’s legal system affect operational aspects of the local business
activity of domestic and foreign companies?
13. How does a country’s legal system affect strategic aspects of the local business activity
of domestic and foreign companies?
14. What is intellectual property? What types are there? What is an intellectual property
right?
15. What are the consequences and outcomes of intellectual property rights violation?
16. Why might IPRs' disputes become more prevalent in the future?
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CHAPTER 4
The Economic Environment
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CHAPTER 5
Globalization and Society
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CHAPTER 6
International Trade and Factor Mobility Theory
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CHAPTER 7
Governmental Influence on Trade
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CHAPTER 8
Cross-National Cooperation and Agreements
1. What are three ways to approach economic integration? How do they differ?
2. Why are regional trading groups important for MNEs’ strategies?
3. Compare and contrast the WTO and its predecessor, GATT.
4. Why is geographic proximity an important reason for economic integration?
5. What are the types of economic integration and the differences among these types?
6. Explain the static effects of regional economic integration. Under what conditions may they
develop?
7. What is the difference between trade creation and trade diversion resulting from regional
economic integration?
8. Explain the dynamic effects of regional economic integration. What are the functions of the
European Commission, European Council, European Parliament, and European Court of
Justice?
9. What is the euro and the rationale for it?
10. What are the implications of the European Union on corporate strategy?
11. Describe the main challenges facing the European Union.
12. What was the rationale for NAFTA?
13. What are the rules of origin and local content provisions of NAFTA?
14. How has NAFTA impacted trade and employment?
15. What are the major regional trading groups in Latin America, Asia, and Africa?
16. What are the two basic types of commodity agreements? How do they differ?
17. Contrast the buffer stock system and the quota system for commodity agreements.
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CHAPTER 9
Global Foreign Exchange and Capital Markets
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CHAPTER 10
The Determination of Exchange Rates
1. What is the International Monetary Fund (IMF)? What are its objectives?
2. What is a Special Drawing Right (SDR)? How is it used?
3. List and define the categories of exchange rate regimes.
4. What is a black market?
5. What is the role of central banks? How do they carry out this role?
6. In what forms do central banks hold their assets?
7. How does a floating exchange rate system work?
8. How does a government maintain a currency value in a managed fixed rate system?
9. Explain the adjustment system that enables a pegged currency system to work.
10. Explain how inflation affects currency values according to the purchasing power parity
(PPP) theory.
11. What is the Big Mac Index, and what are its limitations?
12. What is the relationship between the Fisher Effect and the International Fisher Effect
in terms of currency values?
13. What is the difference between fundamental forecasting and technical forecasting of
exchange rates?
14. What aspects of exchange rate movements does forecasting predict?
15. What are the key factors to monitor when trying to predict exchange rate movements?
16. Why do we need to bother with predicting exchange rate changes?
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CHAPTER 11
Strategy in International Business
1. What are some of the general features of the challenge and importance of strategy in
international business?
2. What are the competing views of firm performance in terms of the industry
organization (IO) versus general management perspectives?
3. What is industry structure? How can managers interpret it?
4. How does a firm create value in terms of low-cost leadership?
5. How does a firm create value in terms of differentiation?
6. What is the value chain?
7. What does core competencies refer to? Why should managers pay attention to it?
8. What conditions influence how MNEs configure and coordinate their value chains?
9. Define global integration. How do international firms respond to this sort of
pressure?
10. Define local responsiveness. How do international firms respond to this sort of
pressure?
11. What are the principal types of strategies that a company can choose?
12. What is an international strategy? What are its defining characteristics? Why would
managers choose this type?
13. What is a multidomestic strategy? What are its defining characteristics? Why would
managers choose this type?
14. What is a global strategy? What are its defining characteristics? Why would managers
choose this type?
15. What is a transnational strategy? What are its defining characteristics? Why would
managers choose this type?
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CHAPTER 12
Country Evaluation and Selection
1. Why do international managers need to understand how to evaluate countries and select
among them for operations? What are the major considerations in developing an overall
location strategy?
2. When deciding where to locate production and sales efforts, how and why might
companies use scanning techniques? How do these techniques differ from the making
of final country selections?
3. What are the major indicators/variables that are important in comparing countries for
market potential?
4. Explain why/how the ease and compatibility of operations is important in choosing
where to operate.
5. When using scanning techniques, what variables are important in indicating where to
go to secure resources?
6. Why is the existence of red tape and corruption important in choosing where to
operate?
7. What is meant by liability of foreignness, and how does it influence companies’
international location decisions?
8. Compare the advantages of locating foreign operations to avoid where competitors
have gone versus locating where competitors are.
9. How might political risk occur? How can companies respond to it?
10. What risks other than political risks should companies consider when making
international location decisions?
11. Compare the major types of published data/information managers can use to compare
countries. What are the problems in relying on these data?
12. Explain how grids and matrices can be used as tools to compare countries.
13. How should reinvestment and harvesting be treated in companies’ location decisions?
14. What are meant by a diversification strategy and a concentration strategy for
international location decisions? Under what circumstances would one strategy be
preferable to the other?
15. Why do most companies examine expansion proposals one at a time rather than
comparing various expansion proposals?
16. How might demographic and technical factors influence changes in the future prime
locations for production and sales?
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CHAPTER 13
Export and Import Strategies
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CHAPTER 14
Direct Investment and Collaborative Strategies
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CHAPTER 15
The Organization of International Business
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CHAPTER 16
Marketing Globally
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CHAPTER 17
Global Manufacturing and Supply Chain Management
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CHAPTER 18
International Accounting Issues
1. What are the major factors influencing the development of accounting standards and
practices around the world?
2. How do the cultural values of optimism versus conservatism affect country
differences in accounting systems?
3. How do the cultural values of transparency versus secrecy affect country differences
in accounting systems?
4. Explain the difference between macro-uniform based and micro-based accounting
systems. What are some examples of countries that fit each system?
5. In what ways do financial statements in one country differ from those in another
country?
6. What are the major forces leading to convergence of accounting standards, and what
are the key organizations involved?
7. How must companies account for transactions denominated in foreign currencies?
8. What is meant by the translation and consolidation of foreign currency financial
statements?
9. How can companies translate their foreign currency financial statements into the parent
currency, and how are translation gains and losses recognized?
10. What are environmental reports, and why are they so important?
11. What are some of the important issues of performance evaluation and control of
MNEs?
12. How do transfer pricing strategies affect performance evaluation?
13. What is the balanced scorecard, and how is it used internationally?
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CHAPTER 19
The Multinational Finance Function
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CHAPTER 20
Human Resource Management
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