Your midterm and final exams are going to give
you the opportunity to take the concepts and
principles we are discussing in this class and
apply them to a real business problem. More
specifically, these papers will require you to
consider the issues surrounding an
organization’s initial international expansion
efforts. Since you final exam relies heavily on
the work that you do for this paper, I recommend
that you take time now to carefully review the
instructions for both midterm and final exams.
Instructions: Assume that your senior management
team wants to investigate the possibility of
expanding beyond the company’s current limited
geographic area and is considering expanding
internationally. You have been given the task to
investigate these new international possibilities and
to share your findings in the form of a cultural
briefing.
1. Begin with a brief description of the organization.
Feel free to create a new fictional organization or
you may model your organization after a real one.
Start by giving your company a name. Specify the
industry (i.e., manufacturing, retail, insurance, or
health care). Describe the products and/or services
it provides.
2. Where do you want to see your company focus
their expansion efforts? To answer this question,
you are to create a cultural briefing for senior
management that discusses how business is
conducted in this country. Include a discussion of
the country, its workforce, and its common business
practices. For instance, discuss language,
traditions, values, and ethics. A good place to begin
your research is with your readings from Adler and
Northouse. Pay particular attention and be sure to
reference Adler’s discussions in chapters 1 and 2
and Northouse’s discussions in chapter 15. Each
author addresses some of the key ways that cultures
vary such as power distance, individualism vs.
collectivism, and uncertainty avoidance. Then
incorporate information obtained from other
scholarly sources. Keep in mind that your cultural
briefing is only complete if it provides practical
advice for your company’s senior management
team. In other words, if your briefing discusses land
mass, population size, and system of government,
you’ve missed the point of this assignment. Not only
is your cultural briefing lacking information about
culture, but it is short on practical information as
well.
The body of this paper (excluding cover page,
abstract, table of contents, reference page, and
appendices) should be approximately eight pages in
length. Your response to Question 1 should be only
one or two pages in length. As the second question
is examining the topics we are learning about in this
class, I expect that this section of your paper will be
particularly well-developed. I recommend that you
refer to at least five scholarly sources other than
your textbooks. Remember that Wikipedia is not
considered a scholarly source for information
