Module Overview:

This module examines a collection of concepts that address living conditions and social norms within different countries.

Clearly, a company that wants to establish a workforce, production facilities or market products and services in a foreign country, must understand the culture, politics, law, and ethics of that country as they relate to its business activities.

Clearly, understanding culture and politics is no simple task as the issues are quite complex for most countries. For example, culture has many aspects such as values, attitudes, manners, and customs. Each of these is important to a company attempting to market products. Companies can ignore these at their peril.

The literature is littered with examples of poorly executed initiatives. For example, Nike recently had to recall its new tennis shoe in West Asia because it had a logo that resembled the Arabic presentation of the word "Allah."

Beyond the unfortunate tale of the recalled shoe, this module includes an interesting case example of how Nike dealt with the controversy of labor issues after it had established some contractual agreements for producing products in Asian countries.

The case illustrates how different a developing and a developed country are with respect to some of these societal differences. The result for Nike was considerable pressure from U.S. interests to better consider the labor conditions in these production facilities. At the same time, the case provides an interesting ethical debate in an international context.

Module Readings and Assignment:

Complete the following readings early in the module:

•Module online lectures

•From the textbook, International business: The challenges of globalization, 8th, please read the following:

?Cross-cultural business

?Political Economy and Ethics

Assignment : Discussion-Culture & International Trade:

Culture and politics are important parts of the external environment and vary greatly, not only between, but also within each country... Research the impact of culture and politics on business using your textbook, Argosy University online library resources, and the Internet. Respond to the following:

•Why is understanding culture critical for successful international business? Give examples of how understanding culture has been important for an international business.

•Classify and describe at least four different types of political systems that an international business might encounter. What type of political system might have the greatest potential for imposing adverse political risk on an international business? Compare at least one other system to the one you selected and explain why it has less potential for imposing political risk.

Submit your assignment to the appropriate Discussion Area.

Write your initial response in 300-500 words.

Please work on using literature within the span of the last 5 years, keep in mind there should not be any one, two, or three sentence paragraphs. Your response should be thorough and address all components of the discussion question in detail, include citations of all sources, where needed, according to the APA Style, and demonstrate accurate spelling, grammar, and punctuation.

Do the following when responding:

•Read your answers.

•Provide substantive comments by

?contributing new, relevant information from course readings, Web sites, or other sources;

?building on the remarks or questions; or

?sharing practical examples of key concepts from your professional or personal experiences

•Respond to feedback on your posting and provide feedback to ideas.

•Make sure your writing ?is clear, concise, and organized; ?demonstrates ethical scholarship in accurate representation and attribution of sources; and ?displays accurate spelling, grammar, and punctuation