Key Concepts in Management and Global Business

Organizational Orientations and Structures

• Polycentric:
  • Our affiliates largely operate independently.
  • Host country-oriented.
  • We are loosely connected.
  • Polycentrism’s costs are largely related to coordination challenges.
• Ethnocentric:
  • We have a model that works everywhere.
  • Home country-oriented.
  • We are superior, more... (implies a sense of superiority).
• Geocentric:
  • Our affiliates bring their distinct qualities together.
  • World-oriented.
  • Our ultimate goal is a global integration.

Leadership and Management Styles

Boss vs. Leader

• Boss:
  • She has to be there for the daily business.
  • Provides stability and governance.
  • Manages by pushing people.
• Leader:
  • She can be away and everyone knows what to do.
  • Shows everyone by example how to achieve goals.
  • Opens the door to innovation.
  • Signals 'do as I do'.

Managerial Archetypes

• Cool Manager: Motivates by giving workers whatever they want.
• Conflict Manager: Sees the workplace as a battlefield of competing players.
• Change Man: Searches for challenge in competitiveness.
• Sunset Man: Works in the here and now, fighting fires.
• Crisis or Crash Man: Believes that you shouldn't fix anything that isn't broken.
• Cash Manager: Focused on costs and budgets.

Management Theories (McGregor's X, Y, and Ouchi's Z)

• Theory X Manager: Authoritarian, secretive, always has the final word.
• Theory Y Man: Participative, values employee opinions.
• Theory Z Manager: Participative, tends to empower employees.

Business and Economic Concepts

• A Harvard study found that this is the major cultural factor influencing business.
• If you're trying to react to a sudden trend shift, consider the Asian market approach.
• Cost competitiveness is usually one of the first considerations.
• More recently, the mistake of focusing solely on labor cost competitiveness has been recognized.
• Agricultural products are shipped to the EU from Mexico because they have lower total costs.
• Doing something just because you love it is considered a non-rational decision.

Research Paradigms and Philosophical Foundations

Core Philosophical Concepts

• Ontology: Concerned with what exists in the world.
• Methodology: General instructions for a way of doing something.
• Epistemology: Values, concerns, conventions, and assumptions about knowledge.
• Objective: Belief that the world is "out there" and independent of perception.
• Subjective: Belief that the only world we really know is constructed by our minds.

Major Research Paradigms

• Postmodern-Poststructural:
  • This paradigm exposes us to our limitations.
  • Reality is too complex to be fully captured.
• Interpretivist:
  • This paradigm takes care to point out that each situation is unique.
  • This paradigm is concerned with and cares about understanding meaning.
• Positivist/Structural-Functional:
  • Represents the world of modern science.
  • Socially, we are born into existing structures.
• Critical-Emancipatory:
  • Holds to an ethical commitment for social change.
  • Focuses attention on issues of power and inequality.

Global Business Structures and Strategies

• Perlmutter states there appears to be a pattern in internationalization.
• An investor who buys successful companies often seeks global reach.
• Rising globalization pressures have led to new organizational forms.

Organizational Diagrams and Models

• Global Affiliate: Often represented by a diagram with a heart (implying central control/core). Affiliates around the world do not necessarily integrate.
• Multidomestic: Represented by a diagram with arrows (indicating local responsiveness and adaptation). Where a "mini-replica" affiliate is established.
• Transnational: Represented by a cube diagram (suggesting integration and complexity). Attempts to concurrently capture global efficiency, local responsiveness, and worldwide learning.
• Area Division: Represented by a company diagram (showing geographical segmentation). Local CEOs manage a wide array of functions within their region.