Research Analytics: World's Most Admired Companies

Instructions - Fortune magazine conducts an annual survey and publishes the rankings of the World's Most Admired Companies. Review the most recent publicly available ranking and examine the best companies as determined by the nine factors highlighted by Fortune magazine.

What stages of the product life cycle, areas of global production/value chain, and home country location are found among these top-rated companies?

Pick one of these companies and characterize their relations with its major host countries in terms of its production and market presence.

In effect, what is this company doing right to earn respect in foreign markets?

How does this company both follow and contribute to the logic of globalization?

What interpretation might be made of this company's global activities using a critical perspective of globalization?

A liberal perspective? A neo-mercantilist perspective?

Expectations - Students must be able to access and critically evaluate information on globalization available from various sources. This series of assignments enables students to evaluate sources of topical information available on the internet and evaluate its relevance for global business by connecting to course concepts from the readings and lectures. Students will individually demonstrate their ability to analyze the variety of research and data on international markets and economic conditions. These assignments help students to build an analytical approach to country risk assessment and the wider global environment. The research tasks must be submitted in Word format (no PDF files) to Moodle.