Introduction to Business


Book Description

Introduction to Business covers the scope and sequence of most introductory business courses. The book provides detailed explanations in the context of core themes such as customer satisfaction, ethics, entrepreneurship, global business, and managing change. Introduction to Business includes hundreds of current business examples from a range of industries and geographic locations, which feature a variety of individuals. The outcome is a balanced approach to the theory and application of business concepts, with attention to the knowledge and skills necessary for student success in this course and beyond. This is an adaptation of Introduction to Business by OpenStax. You can access the textbook as pdf for free at openstax.org. Minor editorial changes were made to ensure a better ebook reading experience. Textbook content produced by OpenStax is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.




Multinational Firms in the World Economy


Book Description

Depending on one's point of view, multinational enterprises are either the heroes or the villains of the globalized economy. Governments compete fiercely for foreign direct investment by such companies, but complain when firms go global and move their activities elsewhere. Multinationals are seen by some as threats to national identities and wealth and are accused of riding roughshod over national laws and of exploiting cheap labor. However, the debate on these companies and foreign direct investment is rarely grounded on sound economic arguments. This book brings clarity to the debate. With the contribution of other leading experts, Giorgio Barba Navaretti and Anthony Venables assess the determinants of multinationals' actions, investigating why their activity has expanded so rapidly, and why some countries have seen more such activity than others. They analyze their effects on countries that are recipients of inward investments, and on those countries that see multinational firms moving jobs abroad. The arguments are made using modern advances in economic analysis, a case study, and by drawing on the extensive empirical literature that assesses the determinants and consequences of activity by multinationals. The treatment is rigorous, yet accessible to all readers with a background in economics, whether students or professionals. Drawing out policy implications, the authors conclude that multinational enterprises are generally a force for the promotion of prosperity in the world economy.




The Geography of Multinationals (RLE International Business)


Book Description

Through a series of international case studies, the nature and the geographical implications of the development of multinational corporations is examined. The volume concentrates on the latter Post-War period of corporate restructuring and readjustment in response to world-wide recession in the mid-1980s. The volume is divided into two parts. In the first each of the chapters considers a particular aspect of the problem of how multinational corporations have developed. In the second part the chapters consider different aspects of the economic and social impacts of these corporations. The common theme that links all the papers is their emphasis on careful historical analysis of different forms of spatial organisation and their transformation into other, different forms.




The Globalizing Cities Reader


Book Description

The newly revised Globalizing Cities Reader reflects how the geographies of theory have recently shifted away from the western vantage points from which much of the classic work in this field was developed. The expanded volume continues to make available many of the original and foundational works that underpin the research field, while expanding coverage to familiarize students with new theoretical and epistemological positions as well as emerging research foci and horizons. It contains 38 new chapters, including key writings on globalizing cities from leading thinkers such as John Friedmann, Michael Peter Smith, Saskia Sassen, Peter Taylor, Manuel Castells, Anthony King, Jennifer Robinson, Ananya Roy, and Fulong Wu. The new Reader reflects the fact that world and global city studies have evolved in exciting and wide-ranging ways, and the very notion of a distinct "global" class of cities has recently been called into question. The sections examine the foundations of the field and processes of urban restructuring and global city formation. A large number of new entries focus on the emerging urban worlds of Asia, Latin America and Africa, including Beijing, Bogota, Cairo, Cape Town, Delhi, Istanbul, Medellin, Mumbai, Phnom Penh, Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, and Shanghai. The book also presents cases off the conventional map of global cities research, such as smaller cities and less known urban regions that are undergoing processes of globalization. The book is a key resource for students and scholars alike who seek an accessible compendium of the intellectual foundations of global urban studies as well as an overview of the emergent patterns of early 21st century urbanization and associated sociopolitical contestation around the world.







Location Behaviour and Relationship Stability in International Business Networks


Book Description

This new book investigates how the relationships of international business networks (one buyer-multiple suppliers) develop over time, looking at the geographical angle as well as an actor composition point of view. Bart Kamp presents a framework that reveals what business-to-business (b2b) factors explain buyer-supplier co-location patterns, making it possible to predict the geographical behaviour of suppliers, and also assesses whether longevity is truly the deep-rooted feature of international b2b network relationships that it is often claimed to be.




Multinational Enterprises


Book Description




Location of International Business Activities


Book Description

In recent years an extensive range of new research has been revisiting the topic of the location of international business activities, from a variety of different perspectives and background interests. This work has been inspired in part by two apparently quite different but actually related contemporary trends: on the one hand, an emergence or revitalization of clusters of activities co-located in or around selected global city regions or fast growing metropolitan areas; and on the other hand, an increased global dispersion of activities conducted within the value chains managed or coordinated by many large multinational enterprises and their business partners. The former trend has given rise to discussions of how the elite of the cultural-cognitive economy of the 21st century (in Allen Scott's terminology) or the creative class (Richard Florida's term) are now being drawn or brought back to major urban centers; while the latter trend is associated with debates over outsourcing, and the economic and social consequences of shifts in the ownership and location of distinct nodes of value chains once production systems become more fragmented and the component parts of such systems become more geographically dispersed. An increased interest in the subject of international business location has been shown by scholars in Strategic Management, in Economic Geography, and in Regional Science, as well as in our own interdisciplinary field of International Business Studies. However, as is often the case in academic research communities, these bodies of scholarship have tended to develop at something of a distance from one another, each conversing internally more than they have with one another. Location of International Business Activities aims to promote a greater conversation between those interested in the topic of Location from various different backgrounds or starting points. The articles are taken from a special issue on the theme of the Multinational in Geographic Space which was published by The Journal of International Business Studies in 2013.




No Ordinary Disruption


Book Description

Our intuition on how the world works could well be wrong. We are surprised when new competitors burst on the scene, or businesses protected by large and deep moats find their defenses easily breached, or vast new markets are conjured from nothing. Trend lines resemble saw-tooth mountain ridges. The world not only feels different. The data tell us it is different. Based on years of research by the directors of the McKinsey Global Institute, No Ordinary Disruption: The Four Forces Breaking all the Trends is a timely and important analysis of how we need to reset our intuition as a result of four forces colliding and transforming the global economy: the rise of emerging markets, the accelerating impact of technology on the natural forces of market competition, an aging world population, and accelerating flows of trade, capital and people. Our intuitions formed during a uniquely benign period for the world economy -- often termed the Great Moderation. Asset prices were rising, cost of capital was falling, labour and resources were abundant, and generation after generation was growing up more prosperous than their parents. But the Great Moderation has gone. The cost of capital may rise. The price of everything from grain to steel may become more volatile. The world's labor force could shrink. Individuals, particularly those with low job skills, are at risk of growing up poorer than their parents. What sets No Ordinary Disruption apart is depth of analysis combined with lively writing informed by surprising, memorable insights that enable us to quickly grasp the disruptive forces at work. For evidence of the shift to emerging markets, consider the startling fact that, by 2025, a single regional city in China -- Tianjin -- will have a GDP equal to that of the Sweden, of that, in the decades ahead, half of the world's economic growth will come from 440 cities including Kumasi in Ghana or Santa Carina in Brazil that most executives today would be hard-pressed to locate on a map. What we are now seeing is no ordinary disruption but the new facts of business life -- facts that require executives and leaders at all levels to reset their operating assumptions and management intuition.




The Role of Multinational Companies in the Middle East


Book Description

This study investigated whether known economic and international business theories available in the literature are meaningful enough to explain the nature, existence and role of multinational companies (MNCs) in the Middle East, particularly Saudi Arabia. Two sets of questionnaires were distributed in major cities of Saudi Arabia -- one set for 100 multinational managers and another for 280 multinational customers. 234 questionnaires were collected -- 45 from multinational managers and 189 from customers. This represents a total response rate of 62 percent, which is adequate for this study.The empirical results, supported with comprehensive secondary data, confirmed virtually all of the research hypotheses. The study found that joint ventures are the dominant form of multinational business in Saudi Arabia, both in manufacturing and service industries. The core roles of MNCs in the Saudi-foreign ventures are evident in the cross-border value-adding activities of marketing, trading, manufacturing, consulting, contracting, project management, insurance, hotel operation and banking. Likewise, MNCs provide licensing, franchising, financing services and various auxiliary roles in the Kingdom. Therefore, the multinationality of a firm or a group of firms operating across national boundaries is not necessarily synonymous with international production -- the main subject of contemporary multinational theories.The respondents generally perceived the competitiveness of MNCs operating in Saudi Arabia as a function of a number of economic, management, marketing, technological and other variables. They also perceived the contributions of MNCs to the KingdomÍs socio-economic developments as significant and positive.The study also found that understanding Islamic values and ethics is important for MNCs. In this regard, the researcher looked at some objective indicators of business success and related them to selected measures of MNCsÍ local cultural awareness and responsiveness. The results indicate that the business success of multinationals operating in Saudi Arabia is positively related to their local cultural awareness and responsiveness. Along this line, this study covers some vital elements of Islamic culture, which will help MNCs understand further the cultural needs, values and sensitivities of the Saudi people and Muslims in general.