Assignment: International Business

Answer five of the following questions.

Guidelines for Submission: Your responses must be no longer than three pages in length per question, with a maximum of 15 pages. Your paper must be submitted as a Microsoft Word document with double spacing, 12-point Times New Roman font, one-inch margins, and sources cited in APA format for each question.

For additional details concerning how this assignment will be assessed, please refer to the Short Paper/Case Study Analysis Rubric document in the Assignment Guidelines and Rubrics section of the course.

1. Describe at least five of the seven major forces attributed to the increasing trend in international business in recent decades and discuss their importance.

2. Describe three primary reasons companies engage in international business. Support each with an example.

3. What is culture shock and how does it affect international business?

4. Differentiate between nationalization, expropriation and confiscation, citing examples of each.

5. Political risk is defined as the risk that political decisions or events in a country will negatively affect the profitability or sustainability of an investment. List and describe the four primary risks as discussed in the text from least to most disruptive. Support each risk with examples.

6. The shift from centrally-planned to market economies resulted in a number of countries whose economic systems can be regarded as in transition. Particularly evident is the transition resulting from the fall of communism in Russia and Eastern Europe. However, similar shifts are also occurring in Africa, Latin America, and China. The transition has taken different forms in different countries because of their different histories, resources and cultures. Describe the three steps involved in the transition process. Support each step with examples.

7. What is the effect of inflation on international business?

8. Why are countries with high GNI and GDP attractive for foreign investment?

9. Why is the argument that "anything that is legal is ethical" insufficient?

10. Once a firm decides to enter a foreign market, it must then determine the best mode of entry. Depending on the level of control that a company wishes to have over its operations and the level of risk that it is willing to take, there are different modes of entry. Describe four of the five modes of entry.