ENTERPRENUERSHIP
The course has generally imparted a lot of knowledge to me, and this paper describes some of the skills I have learned. International business conditions have often made entrepreneurs challenging to handle their businesses due to different environments from their home conditions. Many studies have been done concerning entrepreneurs, but little knowledge has been established concerning how entrepreneurs successfully establish new environments. The management of international operations and entrepreneurship has been the primary uphill task that has raised many questions on how successful businesses have been managed. International businesses have been associated with embedded networks across various borders, thus makes operations successful. Entrepreneurship has been associated with small businesses, large companies, scalable startups, and various social businesses and entrepreneurship. Some of the firms that have successfully managed to establish their networks and operations internationally include Apple company, Microsoft, and many others such as the oil and gas companies that have successfully helped other markets explore their new ways of getting money.
There are five entrepreneurs: the employee, the self-employed entrepreneur, the entrepreneur manager, leader or owner, investor, and the actual entrepreneur. Several risks are taken to establish a successful business, thus requiring good management skills to achieve objectives. Many advantages have been associated with entrepreneurs who go beyond their borders, thus increasing their profits. Global entrepreneurship has been described as establishing new ideas and innovative techniques to succeed in the business industry, even in new conditions, for instance, foreign markets (Zhang et al., 85-110). Global entrepreneurship includes licensing, exporting various goods, acquiring new ventures, and getting or sailing some offices to advance entrepreneurship.
Importance of entrepreneurship
Entrepreneurship comes along with many advantages like a flexible timeline and schedule, autonomy in the globe compared to getting employed where there is no autonomy, creation, and integration of careers that align with the values that one likes and considers significant, continuous growth as well as development, and the opportunity to work with people of the same values as the employer is the owner of the business. Best, thrilling, and unexpected business experiences while having the power to decide who to work with within the business activities. Making and setting up a business makes the business owner have great self-esteem about oneself, thus increasing confidence. Strategic management has been the significant attribute of a successful entrepreneur and the need to be a good manager. The customer requirements and the needs of services and goods are well assessed in the market and proper evaluation done to ensure that customer contentment will be achieved for a better future. The global entrepreneur can do well across various cultures while trying to make the right moves for the growth and scaling of business and huge profits.
There are various approaches useful in international business. The approaches are recruitment, the ethnocentric approach, polycentric approach, geocentric approach, and regiocentric approach. The recruitment approach is primarily concerned with workers’ employment, the policies involved, and the strategies in making entrepreneurship successful with productive employees. The scope of the business also falls under this category. It determines which employees to work in which locations considering global entrepreneurship business have more than one parent country home due to many countries’ existence (Hartsfield et al., 12-38). On the other end, ethnocentric staffing means that employees of a particular nation are hired from the business’s parent nation, making it hard to employ foreign employees. These strategies are always done if the company or business wants to retain the parent nation’s values. Polycentric staffing means locals in a foreign country will be hired to run the newly established business because their skills are needed. The locals would help coordinate the market and ensure that networks are established, thus a better marketing strategy. Regiocentric staffing means that the nations in the region of the business location will be hired to fill in the positions needed. The skills of the people are often needed for the success and growth of the business. Geocentric staffing is the hiring of employees from all the regions regardless of their countries origin. The skills and qualifications of the people are considered for any employment opportunity. Hiring and relocation of employees are often necessary for this approach.
Various recruitment and selection processes are followed to ensure that the best employees are hired. Some of the processes include determining the staffing technique for various tasks and offices, recruitment techniques, allocation of the budget, evaluation methods of the budget, and many other factors like how many employees to hired and what regions or using which recruitment approach. The world today has many international businesses. Any business that fails to have better strategic management, starting from its employees, will have a hard time competing with the rest of the market’s innovative businesses.
International Business.
The study of international business mainly involves understanding various activities on foreign or domestic markets, nations or countries, companies, governments, and particular individuals. Diversity in international business is also a significant factor in the market place, thus coping with different business uncertainties or the risks in a continuously changing market. International business can be categorized as a multi-domestic company with fully independent branches that function as domestic groups of firms. These operations are global with branches integrated with branches, or a combination of all the two categories. The most challenging component in international business is that product or service promotion must be done to realize success. The term multi-domestic is a strategic business model that helps promote various services and goods across various markets worldwide, thus making the services and products accepted in the norms or cultural aspects of the market regardless of their religious aspects cultural preferences. The term multinational involves making sales of products and services in foreign markets without manipulating the products’ attributes to accumulate the daily ways of life or culture of the different markets.
Benefits of international business
Countries that take part in international business have a significant advantage over those who do not because of the many positive results that are witnessed from international business. The nation in international business participation has access to resources, affordable land, labor, and capital. The nations can do imports or exports of their products, thus making them have a better advantage. The nations can fully utilize the ability to take advantage of some production factors that will help them produce products abundantly. Nations in international business with enough or adequate capital can transfer their production processes to another country with cheap production costs. Cheap production costs include cheap or affordable labor, raw materials, or land, thus maximizing their company profits. Companies whose local markets are fully saturated to a high extend may seek to establish their business in a nation with a booming market, making them earn better revenues and profits. Countries with treaties and can do international business together allow their companies to easily take advantage of the existing expertise and many factors that will accelerate the production of goods or creation and offering of services, thus bringing success to the nation and its companies. The nations can quickly increase or change their goods or services based on the more enormous market demands in the global market of international business. New opportunities are created for various companies, thus making the creation of new products advanced.
In contrast, the resources used are efficiently used due to competition to the local market by foreigners, thus advancing the innovation rate as foreigners come with new ideas of production and offering services (Thanos et al., 495-514). The efficiency of resource usage makes production very innovative, creating more opportunities to advance knowledge on maximizing the available resources due to massive demand from international companies in the local market. On the other end, consumers can get new services and goods from foreign companies, thus making the market satisfactory to the consumer with a broader choice to get or acquire their products. Both the local people and companies can learn from each other, thus introducing new ideas, products, devices, technologies, and services to the market, making the level of production improve.
The rise and growth of the international market.
The twentieth century saw the rise and prevalence of treaties that helped create international markets, thus making the process of business with foreigners easy. Various elements boosted the adoption of international business by many nations. The elements that boosted international business include the WTO, the introduction of fund transfers electronically, the introduction of new currencies into the European Union such as the Euro, innovations in the technological sector and transport industry, and the communist disbanding markets that could not allow private markets. The dissolution of the communist markets led to a rise in several private businesses that wanted to trade globally, thus creating new ways of doing business that included the need to do international business. Competition today is global because goods are produced and exported, making local manufacturers keep up with foreign manufacturers’ pace (Chandra, 23-451). Therefore, the local markets led to the advancement and accepted foreign manufacturers into local markets as they also had access to their markets. Some companies only import or export services and goods. In contrast, others have integrated their services firmly in the international market, thus establishing strategic alliances across the globe for their business’s success. Therefore, international business has grown over some time and is still to be understood and maximized well by various countries worldwide.
The challenges and considerations of international business
Due to the variant laws, systems of governments, regulations, duties, taxes, and many other factors, difficulties in carrying out international business arise. Nations have different ways of doing things; for instance, they have different cultures, currencies, and practices, thus a need to agree with the right ways of handling international business with one another. Complexity arises due to disagreements in solving these mentioned issues, thus creating trade courts that solve arising disagreements or conflicts between a nation and another. Understanding the global market’s size and trends is almost impossible, and thus the need for advanced technology and highly experienced experts to handle the market issues. The processes involved in handling these markets are often costly and labor-intensive, making international business processes very costly, which hampers smooth business in the globe. There are over 200 markets today globally, thus making the number of business opportunities, the number of goods and services required worldwide or being supplied be described as endless.
However, Hurdles arise when the various factors of a market are considered; for instance, the national wealth distribution and disparities are still vast and thus difficult to predict. According to population and wealth, people’s diversity is still some factors that hamper smooth business internationally. This issue can be clearly explained by North America, which is just five percent of the world’s population yet controls more than a third of its wealth, thus making it unfair for business. Diversity in linguistics Has hampered communication as there are more than ten thousand cultural groups with unique languages in the world, thus the need to address the language of communication, which makes business slower than expected. The size and diversity in population have also made the process of international business complicated. Some of the issues identified to have brought business barriers in the international business include the economic, political, cultural, and competitive environment. These are the many difficulties experienced by professionals and various players in the industry.
Economic environment
One market’s economic environment varies significantly from one market to another based on the nation’s stability. Some markets, for instance, are industrialized, whereas others are less industrialized. Some are newly emerged, meaning they just got industrialized, whereas some are third-world markets with few or no industries. Many factors bring the variation and the rate of challenges in the markets, for example, the rate of education among the people in a market and their nation’s technological advancement. The amount of investment done in one market may vary and will only be measured in the level of infrastructure established for effective business; for instance, transportation of goods such as raw materials from one point to another may be hampered by factors such as the cost of transportation in a market.
The structure of a market in a nation may also hamper the rate of business in a country; for instance, if a market is free, centrally planned, or mixed, the business rate will vary depending on the business being done. Free market nations allow their economies to handle business transactions with less bureaucracy, making the investors free to maximize their profits. Less interference from the market and the system or government is noticed in a free market, making every activity in the international business for foreigners very fair. On the other hand, major economies are controlled by the government, making the business in the market so reliant on the government that investors get harmful effects sometimes due to unpredictable situations caused by the government. For instance, China is an example of a centrally placed economy and plays a significant role in hampering international players’ prosperity in favor of local companies and businesses. Today, many countries are free-market economies that make most of the good for international business due to less government interference. The interference has hence made investing in some markets difficult despite the lucrative market in it.
Political environment
The relationship created between the businesses and the government of the market or the nation dramatically determines the international businesses’ success. Therefore, the nation’s political risks determine the success of a business in the economy, thus a need to ensure that nations are politically stable. Therefore, the problem that arises is how to deal with international governments if the business is foreign. The skills needed to handle and adapt to a new environment have always proved to fail, considering that a politically unstable nation has no consumers due to low economies. The types of governments, such as multiparty, dictator, monarchies, or constitutional governments, determine the market’s business success rates. Governments vary, making love or hate a foreign business considering the relation with their local market and the foreign one. Suppose the goodwill of the government fails to be shown. In that case, the foreign business may fail to take off, making it fail and its goals not achieved, thus weakening the spirit of international business considering the investments that may go to waste in the international business. Therefore, establishing a business in a foreign environment needs an analysis of the government’s political structure in the market to avoid any regrets and ensure the best strategies are laid out. Unforeseen changes must be considered in a foreign business establishment to avoid any surprise in the regulations and market access policies. Other factors that have proved to be of great concern in the international business environment are riots, war, terrorism, and revolutions that may destroy many business assets.
Cultural environment
Culture is a crucial component in any market, thus making it a sensitive issue for any business’s success. It has been difficult for foreign businesses to be successful if they fail to understand the market or nation’s foreign culture. Some of the shared beliefs can be tapped into, and the values used to set up a better business environment, but everything becomes complicated if the values are different. Many factors have been blamed for cultural problems in international businesses, such as religion, location, history, education, and government (Calabrò et al., 238-248. If a business fails to analyze and understand a market’s culture, it may fail to be successful in the international market, thus an issue.
Competitive environment
The continuously changing environment regarding the political environment, economy, and the many variant cultures in the market has brought a lot of challenges in international business. The hostility or friendliness of a market keeps changing and makes it difficult to predict the market changes. Competition has now turned to technology, especially in manufacturing and processing, thus making every business have an issue in keeping up with the changing technology from innovators. Therefore, factors affecting a nation’s competitiveness must be considered to ensure that a business is booming in the foreign market.
Some other factors have been associated with successful international business like unbearable tariffs, import licenses, import quotas, export licenses, subsidies, local content needs, voluntary restraints on export restraints. Economic sanctions over a particular country by significant players have played a significant role in hampering smooth business. Export and various import control measures unfair have made businesses fail and stop from existence in specific markets. Government subsidies may be biased to certain markets, thus unfair for different markets, making such businesses plunge in continuous losses. If the market is not a participant in various important trade pacts, accessing trade and markets may be difficult, thus making competition globally tricky. Labor costs, stiff competition from local companies, and high taxes from the local government have made business conditions worse.
Remedies to challenges of international entrepreneurship challenges
Labor and production costs have been noticed to be low in developed countries, thus giving subsidies for foreign companies to fairly compete with the local companies in the production of goods and offering of services. The barriers such as infrastructure in developing countries should be solved, for instance, the need for cheap power and sound transportation systems for lower costs of transportations. Making businesses easy to start by reducing the policies and making them clear to understand will make business easy. Over-taxation by various governments should be done away with to help in the reduction of improving the business environment. Sanctions and various business or trade biasness towards certain regions should be eliminated to ensure that a balanced environment for trade is established. The import and export licenses should be made easy to get by reducing the bureaucracy needed for establishing any business (Boso et al., 4-26). Availing the required information is necessary for the right environment for businesses to be set up with fewer barriers. Businesses should establish thorough business research before establishing their businesses in a particular market to avoid surprise disappointments. Regulations should have harmonized, reduced, and non-tariff barriers removed to make the business environment better.
Conclusion
Entrepreneurship is the way to go concerning better business strategies. Many challenges have been associated with international entrepreneurship but have been analyzed by various scholars and solutions. Entrepreneurship has been said to be the booster of economies and improvement of the lives of ordinary people. However, it entirely depends on the business owners’ strategic management abilities if the business has to be successful. Generally, entrepreneurship needs many factors in place for a better and fair business condition. Some of the factors include the relations between the markets and other nations or the instabilities of various markets. Profitable markets must be predictable and, if not, can be made predictable sing various techniques. In summary, I have acquired several skills in this course and will be useful in my career and life.
References
Boso, Nathaniel, Pejvak Oghazi, and Magnus Hultman. “International entrepreneurial orientation and regional expansion.” Entrepreneurship & Regional Development 29.1-2 (2017): 4-26.
Calabrò, Andrea, et al. “Governance structure and internationalization of family-controlled firms: The mediating role of international entrepreneurial orientation.” European Management Journal 35.2 (2017): 238-248.
Chandra, Yanto. “A time-based process model of international entrepreneurial opportunity evaluation.” Journal of International Business Studies 48.4 (2017): 423-451.
Hartsfield, Samantha, Douglas Johansen, and Gary Knight. “Entrepreneurial orientation, strategy, and marketing capabilities in the performance of born global firms.” International Business: Research, Teaching, and Practice 2.1 (2017): 12-38.
Thanos, Ioannis C., Pavlos Dimitratos, and Panagiota Sapouna. “The implications of international entrepreneurial orientation, politicization, and hostility upon SME international performance.” International small business journal 35.4 (2017): 495-514.
Zhang, Man, Qian Gao, and Hyuk-Soo Cho. “The effect of sub-national institutions and international entrepreneurial capability on international performance of export-focused SMEs: Evidence from China and South Korea.” Journal of International Entrepreneurship 15.1 (2017): 85-110.