Global Questions

1. What are some of the challenges presented to transnational organizations? How important is it to recognize these challenges before responding to them?

2. What are some of the capabilities needed in a multidimensional and competitive environment? How might an organization develop these capabilities?

3. How might an organization best create awareness of the need for cross-border knowledge management? What happens if the methods for creating awareness are inadequate? Explain your answers.

4. In this current economy there are times the factory is not fully operating. The question to all of you is what to do with the many hours of available time in a factory? One Asian company I am aware of gave 100,000 hours of training to 2,800 employees. If this were an American manufacturer do you think this amount of investment in training would have occurred? For everyone else is this a good use of capital in the company or would pushing these people off to state supported unemployment been a fiscally better choice?

5. One of the keys to entry into any country is the degree of intellectual property protection. If you have patents or copyright protection on your products do you thing the decision to entry the following countries may be different or would the intellectual property protection issues be the same?

6. Licensing is definitely a good mode of entry when the product is not too complex. Things like shoes, clothes and furniture fit this category nicely. My question remains are you protected? If you license a product to a Vietnamese or Chinese manufacturer do you have control of the product and its use? Could the guy down the street simply copy it and sell it on the black market?