ABSTRACT
At its most basic, business is about competition. Indeed, management’s job is to gure out how to outperform competitors in ways that allow the rm to grow and become more protable. at “how to”—the steps and actions that company leadership pursues to accomplish rm objectives-is the essence of strategy. Yet developing and implementing company strategy becomes much more challenging when borders are crossed. As we’ve seen, multinationals oen face a diverse quilt of cultures, values, and practices. In addition, they typically encounter an array of opportunities (e.g., unexploited markets) and threats (e.g., political risk, possible moves by competitors, management headaches) in foreign countries. Consequently, guring out the best way to operate in various markets around the world can be a very complicated matter indeed. Developing an overall plan for competing abroad and choosing market entry options that make sense for the rm can mean the dierence between success and failure when operating internationally.2
