Export-management Books

This book should be on the desk of every marketing and human resources manager involved in foreign trade. It is not only for larger companies that have already built a global sales network. It is also for beginners who should consider these cross-cultural factors BEFORE they start selling their goods and services in overseas markets. John R. Jagoe, Director, Export Institute.

This is an excellent book for learning more about managing multicultural organisations. Already in its second edition after being first published in 1995, it has improved. The COM or Cultural Orientation Model integrates all the cultural dimensions of famous authors Hofstede, Hampden-Turner and Trompenaars, Stewart and Bennett/Rhinesmith, Kluckhohn and Strondtbeck/Hall and Edwart Hall into a cartwheel.

Though the authors are very much pro-convergence (even claiming in Chapter 1 that Global harmonization of consumer buying preferences will dominate certain industry-goods and services-sectors.) as to Globalization they manage to build up a comprehensive argument about the high role of culture in the process of organizational globalization.

Busy international managers could find the approach of breaking the complexities of cultural differences into value orientations a bit theoretical in the absence of case examples and critical incidents. There are some good case studies in chapter 4:A Survey of Cultural Patterns but there are too few of them in the whole book. In fact more of these would have helped in getting a vital point accross that cultural boundaries are not national boundaries. For people involved in designing performance management systems and strategic planning in multicultural organisations this book is highly recommended reading. HR-practitioners in multicultural organizations would also benefit from reading this book.

Recently I wrote a book about multinational management published in 1968. After finishing this book, I realized that the conflicts between multicultural and multinational difference are stands still under the similar managerial circumstance, though we are living in the digital-dominated world. So I studied this book compared with its' phenomenon as described in "International Management". Keeping a flexible communication skill in multinational-cultural is the key factor to achieve meaningful outcome. For this, the open-minded, instructive and far-sighted personality required first. When they acknowledged difference not wrong each other, they can start to talk about what they want for negotiation, next proceed to persuade or yield a little. This means the more internationalized people there as a matchmaker, the more the company benefited from them. Then how to get Mr. Right for global manager? They all born naturally? Or trained? Both are all right. Person who has got global brain with digital management skill (as Mr. Bill Gatz called) must appeal to adapt extreme change and more action to cope with international risky problem. They could continue to get or lose by trial and error and learned what's the best, step by step and case by case. There are no standard learning system to teach them. That's not the lost rather than investment for human resources for each company ultimately. If you are would-be-global manager or second-rate reginal manager or have a dream of international manager, read this book and write down and analyze what's your strong/weak point more carefully. Then take into action to the first-rate global manager. If anyone who is in a top-management read, they can set effective multinational goal to come and get. How about students or average person? Of course, they will be fine.

Alan Rugman does yeoman service in dispelling the myths of globalization as an omnipotent and omnipresent force in international business. Drawing on a myriad of recent cases, such as Disney and Saatchi and Saatchi, Rugman presents a thorough, compelling and provocative argument that regional markets and intra-firm transactions and relationships within those markets (particularly the triad of Asia, North America and Europe) and not a globalized, cast-the-net-widely juggernaut approach to multinational corporate strategy will continue to rule the day.

Alan Rugman is one of the top business school researchers in the world. In this insightful book he takes a different view of globalisation than most. It is very useful and thougt provoking.

Rugman's "End of Globalization..." is a superb analysis of the international trade of product and services and the nature of foreign investment. He effectively shows how, in reality, international trade and investment needs to be understood in terms of firm and not market activity, and in particular, in terms of the activities of 441 of the Fortune 500 companies. Rugman's work shows how most globalization activity is, in fact, based within a triad of Europe, Japan and the U.S., Foreign Direct Investment is largely intra-firm and industry, and that the key driver is regional and local based economic activity, not a global free-for-all.

Rugman provides examples of how globalization fails (Disney, Saatchi and Saatchi) as well as success stories (ACER) and an analysis of how 20 of the world's multi-national corporations actually operate - i.e., with a strong regional and local presence.

We covers the role of the WTO (demise imminent), protectionism (NAFTA and EU), health and evironmental restrictions, and positions the dot com dream of internet-driven wealth as being one of media hype. There is no single global culture he says, and the new mantra really should be "Think Regional. Act Local. Forget Global".

This book is a brilliant demolition act on the false promises of globalization and also a stinging riposte to the doom-mongering paranoia of the Starbuck's trashers of Seattle and the McLibel crybabies.

Well written, clear, forthright, and with relevant examples this book is a must for students of globalization and international economics everywhere

Having been involved with exporting companies and foreign licenses in the past, I knew just the book to recomend when my daughter asked me for the best source for "how to" information on exporting, including government assistance and financial support. I sent her my copy of Exporting from Start to Finance which several of my associates use for reference and for teaching new staff. She tells me it was just what she was looking for. Richard Gould

The ordinary person would not think that the business and professional man in the State of Idaho has much need for foreign export/import information. That is not the case and the WELLS/DULAT book on EXPORTIONG FROM START TO FINANCE was just the ticket for many of us. The practical approach, examples and forms in the book were invaluable to us. It is great to have a readable book by someone who is in the business and who knows what they are talking about.

There are plenty of books which are overviews of exporting. THis book gives details of export paperwork, contracts, samples of exporter representation agreements between exporters and manufacturers/suppliers and all the nuts and bolts of exporting in detailed form. If you don't get this book for your business you are crazy. All acronyms, strategies, problems are discussed in details. Especially good for home-based exporters who wants to succeed quickly without all the learning disasters.

This book introduce the commercial aviation industry, its characteristics regarding operational, finnancial, and global aspects. Very useful for economic and marketing students.

I find Global Airlines a 'must' for anybody entering the airline industry. Especially the information given on the various CRS's is a fine tool to help understand why the CRS/GDS world came to be the way it is and why it simply has to change and where it probaly will change to be in the future. I bought this book in 1996 and it is still a great tool in 1998!

strategic group map of the airlines company. which airlines company is strongest, and which is worse.

Before you end up in the international markets saying, "Help! What am I supposed to do now?", avoid that predicament by reading Michael Hick's "Global Deals". That way, you will start out with the guidance of an experienced global businessman, an enthusiastic mentor who has "been there, done that" in every corner of the global market for over 40 years. In a sense, to read this book is to go to a party of colorful global marketing pros, where you can learn from their anecdotes, their gaffes, their hilarious or embarrassing mistakes, their years on the road, their lessons for the uninitiated. From all of this accumulated wisdom, the author pulls together advice, rules, checklists, warnings, but mainly his perception and sensitivities about the various cultures, in order to give you the main thing he wants you to have: a "global mindset": a way of understanding, accepting, appreciating, and doing business with a rich variety of people in the world who are waiting to buy from or sell to your companies. With special chapters dealing with the role of women in international markets, and even with protecting yourself against kidnapping in some countries, "Global Deals" is definitely a "must read" for every businessman who realizes that his market is now global. It is a thorough handbook that should be in every businessman's briefcase.

For almost 40 years,I have been traveling the globe selling high tech systems.
Global Deals aptly describes the events of all those many years. But I learnt the hard way and Oh! How I wish Michael Hick's book was in my briefcase.

This is an interesting, informative read written in anecdotal style, which suits the busy business traveler. You can read a chapter and put in down and go back to it a day later and read that chapter again or read another chapter and always the result is a learning process.

I consider myself an expert on the subject and can assert that in this book he has captured all the essential ingredients of what makes for a successful deal on a global basis. From the most simple to the most complex of ideological, cultural and business elements, he shows how the other side tends to approach a deal and what our thinking process should be.

Now more than ever, technology allows global deals to be accomplished behind a desk. Even more reason to understand the cultural, psychological, business, language and other differences that make global deal exciting and rewarding.

For those that don't want to learn the hard way, this book is the answer.

George Platt
Houston TX
25, November 2003

Michael Hick has written an extremely readable book that explains the reasons for many misunderstandings between people of different cultures. Every person who has any international contacts should read this book. The "cultural clash" is brought into sharp focus. An excellent read with interesting, real life, illustrations.

Having read this book a while ago, I fully concur with a "Reader from New York". Unlike more recent books on sourcing/outsourcing, there are no hypes in this book. You can get a very straightforward, impartial view. Sure will recommend it for anyone working in this area, practitioners and academics alike.

Global sourcing has become a buzzword in recenty years, thanks to increased outsourcing activities. I purchased this book (published in 1992) in January, 2000. Kotabe examined sourcing issues from an "in-house sourcing" rather than an "outsourcing" point of view. In a way, it is a very refreshing viewpoint as he talks of benefits and costs (long-term risks) of certain in-house sourcing vs. outsourcing. A lot of us who are in charge of "outsourcing" for the sake of being contemporary in our business thinking (and deeds) tend to ignore some fundamental weaknesses of outsourcing that Kotabe points out. Although this is a research book, it has had me do some deep thinking on our corporate sourcing strategy. You can get a lot of food for thought. It got to be a must reading for strategists in charge of sourcing/outsourcing/procurement/supply chain management, whatever you call our jobs.

...It is refreshing to read this 1992 book in2000. Eight years is a long time, and many concepts de jour haveappeared and cluttered our thought on sourcing/procurement/outsourcing/insourcing/offshoring/supply chain management/ or whatever terms come across your mind. This book is a no-nonsense, yet easy-to-read, academic book. I have been reading Kotabe's work over the years. After reading this book, read his article that appeared in the Nov. 98 issue of the Academy of Management Executive. I'm sure you will rethink the whole issue of sourcing strategy.---A comment from one strategist gainfully employed by a US auto manufacturer. END

Culture shock is sometimes taken for granted, however to be cosmopolitan, is to have experienced a culture shock and being able to fully utilize it to your own benefit. Brazil is one of these places in the world were the unwritten rules are as important as the air you breath, if you intend to successfuly journey through this country, it is imperative that you learn about the culture, the history and the economy. Yet the most precious commodity you can come accross, is a friend... Because doors will be open to you in ways you've not yet experienced before. This book is a friend.

It is very small and quick to read. However, it was amazing how much quality information the author could pack into such a small space. She lived 18 years in Brazil, and as a Brazilian reading the book, I can tell she knows what she was talking about. It was also curious for me to learn about things that I always took for granted, or that I thought were specific to my personality rather than from the culture. Unfortunately it is out of print as of this writing (Dec 2003). I hope it gets reprinted soon.

This book is a great help in deciphering Brazilian customs and subtle cues. I would also recommend "A History of Brazil" and "The Brazilian Sound: Samba, Bossa Nova and the Popular Music of Brazil" as essential works that also give vital background.

The text is aimed at practising international marketers, although also of benefit to students of more advanced or specialised international marketing programmes. The material is developed from years of line management and international marketing consultancy, including with many blue chip multinational corporations, across many global markets. Much of the material has been used, honed and customised, on many in-company team development programmes run by the author.

The author clearly is a hands on international marketer, sharing his experience across many markets and aspects of international marketing. Whilst is is of good use for students of international marketing, particularly those of CIM and Institute of Export professional exams, I think it is particularly relevant for practisng marketers.

Collaboratively compiled and edited by Timothy A. Wise, Hilda Salazar and Laura Carlsen, Confronting Globalization: Economic Integration And Popular Resistance In Mexico presents informed and informative essays from a variety of expert contributors pondering diverse labor, agricultural, and environmental issues within the context of contemporary globalization. Looking at the social and environmental costs that globalization extracts upon Mexico's land and people; exploring grassroots searches for alternate paths; and ranging from sweatshop workers' struggles for basic labor rights to the efforts of corn farmers to keep the influx imported grain from forcing them off their land, Confronting Globalization is very highly recommended reading for students of international economics, social activists, and governmental trade policy makers.

A Review:
Confronting Globalization:
Economic integration and popular resistance in Mexico
Wise, Timothy A., Salazar, Hilda, Carlsen, Laura eds., 248 pages (paper),
Kumarian Press, Bloomfield, CT 2003
....)

Globalization and trade policies such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) have had disastrous effects on Mexican communities Confronting Globalization is about what some of these communities are doing at the grass-roots political level to defend themselves. The setting is contemporary Mexico. This book provokes discussion of the lessons of the social and environmental costs of the NAFTA. The editors have gathered the real stories of real communities and the community members organized to address conflicts. The book ends with thoughtful guidance for us to ponder as corporations and governments sally along with new hemispheric-wide economic agreements. This kind of guidance is very rare these days as most of us hunt for workable paradigms to guide social justice actions in the future.

The basic premise of the book is that increased trade and investment result from reduced barriers, but these should not be an end in themselves. National governments should go further than global economic integration and judiciously use the fruits of free trade as a means toward an end of improving their own society, environment, and economies. This book not only shows how communities and local democracy have been weakened by globalization, but lessons are examined and recommendations are offered as important considerations for future agreements. The promise that globalization can strengthen us all has proved hollow, and here we see how and why it has failed - and we can see what must be different in our immediate tomorrows.

The editors use nine case studies of actual communities that have been impacted by neo-liberal trade policies. The setting of this book is stories of how these communities are defending themselves from the onslaught of corporate power and stories of how laws have weakened the national ability to protect the people of a country. Locally-based alternative policies can be viable alternatives but they must be protected and nurtured by national and international agreements.

With a focus on environmental, labor, and agricultural issues the book documents how the past ten years of free trade have resulted in an exclusive focus on corporate profits. This book shows how, with detailed citations, these agreements result in a weakening of democratic government, deterioration of the environment, and declining labor conditions. For example, the authors document how rural Mexico, heavily dependent on small-scale agriculture, is in crisis. Grain imports from the United States and reduced supports to small farmers have resulted in four-fifths of the rural Mexican population living in poverty, and half of those people live in extreme poverty. Small farmers just can't compete on such unequal terms. Is this free trade? Who benefits? Who loses?

These authors do an excellent job of supporting their thesis with facts that are annotated. For example, the editors of Confronting Globalization document how Mexican per capita growth was 3.4% from 1960 to 1980. Since 1985 Mexican per capita real growth has been just 1%. Job creation in Mexico does not nearly keep up with the increase of the population. New workers are entering the economy faster than jobs are being created. Manufacturing has seen a net loss of jobs since NAFTA took effect. NAFTA critics predicted American jobs would migrate to Mexico. Some did. But the jobs created in Mexico are not good jobs - manufacturing wages are down 12% under NAFTA, and about 60% of the Mexican workers do not receive any of the benefits legally mandated by their government.

How can this increasing impoverishment of our neighbor be good for the United States? Who gains from international trade agreements and who are the real losers? Read this book and you will come away with a solid grounding in the basic lessons of free trade. Talk of globalization usually means talk of economic conditions, but costs to the environment, agriculture, and worker well-being are ignored. States must include these sectors when considering future agreements such as the Free Trade Area of the Americas.

The student of global trade agreements will be familiar with challenges of national pressures as the regions struggle to integrate. There are many articles and books about trade agreements of the 20th and 21st Centuries but documentation of how these changes have impacted contemporary Mexican civil society, and in turn our society, are not common. Confronting Globalization is important because these stories detail how communities have responded at the grassroots level with a wide diversity of social responses. It should be required reading for the university-level scholar, the politicians who create trade policy, and social activists who seek to ameliorate the harm caused by globalization. The clearly delineated recommendations are essential considerations for future action.

2003-08-15
...

For the dictionary on Japanese economy, ¡®MIT Encyclopedia of the Japanese Economy¡¯ has been widely used. Such a dictionary is needed for you can¡¯t read all the material on the Japanese economy. Literatures on Japanese economy are still flooding on the market. Moreover, there are so many sub-disciplines that you can never read through them all, and even making a reading list is prohibitively time-consuming.
MIT Encyclopedia was updated in 1999 to the 2nd edition. It deals with mainly big topics such as unemployment with some length. But this book, published in 2002, tackles not only general economic subjects, but business affairs like Sony, Japanese business in US, and Chalmers Johnson, as title implies. And that I think the quality of articles is not behind MIT¡¯s. This book¡¯s contributors are well-known figures in Japanese studies. And like MIT¡¯s at the end of each article is the reading list on that subject.

This book is the most comprehensive reference I have seen on Japanese business related topics. Entries cover business history, leaders, management, technology, and company profiles. The authors appear to be well informed and up-to-date on what is happening in Japan, the writing is concise and the citations are helpful for research. I highly recommed this as a must-have reference for anyone interested in Japan and/or global business.