International-Finance-Corporation

We all know how much difference there is when a team functions well - the tricky part is getting it to happen. This new book tackles this topic in the context of Canadian engineering teams, which are almost all composed of people from many cultures. In this insightful book, Dr. Laroche includes lots of material to help get multicultural teams firing on all cylinders.

Written for both managers and technical contributors, the book uses a multicultural lens to look at management styles, teamwork, communication and career management. This new perspective drives home a central theme that cultural differences are key in how our teams work, and not widely recognized in their importance. In these kinds of abstract topics I find concrete examples very helpful, and the author includes numerous anecdotes drawn from his consulting background. These vivid examples show the profound impact of what sometimes seem like small issues, like the Mexican engineer who resigned the day after getting some negative feedback in front of his colleagues.

The book also includes a number of quantitative charts and tables showing how different cultures have quite different expectations of the importance of hierarchy, individualism, and risk tolerance. Having read this book, I now much better understand the experience I had in Canada managing an employee from another culture. What I experienced as a lack of assertiveness was actually the case of an employee expecting highly directive management, and their way of showing respect. Had I understood that well at the time, I would have approached the situation quite differently, even starting at the interview stage. On the flip side, the book would have helped me a lot during my two-year stay in France. In particular, it wasn't until I read this book that I realized that when my French colleagues were jumping in and finishing my sentences, they were demonstrating their agreement by showing they knew how my sentences were going to end!

The book closes with a number of interesting comparisons, like the different emphasis on theory and hands-on work that exist between engineering schools in Canada, the United States, France and Mexico. And to finish off, an entertaining appendix containing explanations of expressions which we take for granted from such diverse areas as baseball ("to be out in left field" - to make no sense at all) and warfare ("loose cannons" - ones which are not fixed down, and fire a different direction each time).

This book is really helpful in a way to understand cultural difference. It focuses on new immigrants issues, multiculture team work and communication barrier. Also focuses on why this has happend and how to overcome it. Different country have different working style and one really understands this when reading this book. It covers all the ideas a technical person needs to overcome all barriers and get aquainted with multiculteral system.

The most important representation for me were page numbers 69, 91, 93, and 148. I found the graphs on pages 188, 216, and 217 really helpful.

This book is extremely reader-friendly and substantive at the same time. The reader will find practical applications for many of the cross-cultural insights presented. More importantly, international managers of technical employees and leaders of cross-border technical teams will not only recieve sound advice about what to do or not do in many situations, but will also understand why. I recommend the book without reservation.

This book is solidly grounded in theoretical and analytical rationales. Yet, it presents a counterintuitive conclusion: Sanctions and boycotts do not work. We may have wasted our time pressuring multinationals that operated in South Africa, and now in Burma, Iraq and Israel. A must read to understand the dynamics of global power and how multinationals stave off controls.

This book takes an academic view of the theory behind multunational corporations.

Strengths: It skilfully questions some of the basic assumptions behind the modern theory of the multinational -- as the author illustrates these assumptions permeate all our other global theories but do not have predictive validity. It also tackles a very important social issue, whether our methods to influence multinational corporations work. Did they work in South Africa? The author very convincingly proves that they did not.

Weaknesses: Some of the weaknesses are inescapable in a scholarly work. The detailed quantitative analysis and data may be skipped (as the author indicates) by policy-makers. However, a large chapter deals with this issue. Also, although the author extends her theory of multinational corporations as chameleons from South Africa to other hotspots such as Myanmar (Burma) and Nike, I would have liked her to tackle some social questions: such as whether our pressuring multinational corporations to leave South Africa extended white economic domination in the country. This question and others of its ilk are probably politically incorrect, or beyond the book's already large scope, and the author skirts them. Consquently, this book leaves you thinking -- and that may be what a good book should do.

All in all a very comprehensive, systematic and courageous look at the assumptions, theories and institutions that shape global society.

Five stars!

The scholarly literature on multinational corporations is very weak when it comes to explaining why multinationals leave. This is the focus of this book. After one of the best reviews EVER on research regarding the multinational corporation, the author presents a very detailed study on why they left South Africa. The implications for this study extend to anyone who wants to know why multinationals leave -- or anyone who wants to influence whether they stay or leave! Excellent and highly recommended

This is an excellent review of international corporate governance practice and short-termism Essential reading for Internatioanl Business

Previous work on Corporate Governance has often produced a rough view of Corporate Governance practices and their influnce on investment decisions. This book examines different national models of Corproate Governance,how they operate, and how they affect investment decisions in Research and Development. The implications of differing Coporate Governance practices for other intangible investment decisions, company policies, and for Financial Reporting is also examined.

This book provides an up-to date review of the structures and characteristics of the various financial and corporate governance systems that exist in eleven industrialized countries around the globe. It also informs the reader as to why and how some companies take advantage of these differences, while others fail, in the finance and management of their long-term investment decisions such as Research and Development.

It's very excellent book. It show's how each market has it's own prespective markets throughout the world.

The Global Corporation is required reading for those who seek to understand the complex issues and problems that are an important part of the future of those companies seeking to do business outside of their traditional home market. The book is well rounded in scope and conveys its message in a clear, concise and easy to follow manner. It first begins with a lesson in the history of the world economy and its various market structures. The rest of the book is dedicated to analyzing the multifaceted issues that are common to all companies who are now or will in the future compete in the multinational/global arena. I highly recommend this book to anyone whose career, interests, or academic studies are in anyway related to economics and business.

The author profiles the characteristics of a global corporation-distinct from a multinational, this is an enterprise consisting of a network of independent entrepreneurs operating autonomous units, with support and guidance, but not control, from headquarters. The parent company treats each national market as part of a regional or global network. This is an interesting and well written book about an increasingly important subject. Reviewed by Yvette Borcia, co-founder, Stern & Associates, co-author of Stern's Sourcefinder The Master Directory to HR and Business Management Information & Resources, Stern's CyberSpace SourceFinder, and Stern's Compensation and Benefits SourceFinder

The book provides a hard hitting summary of both the risks and opportunities of the developing countirs. It also included a lot of solutions to the problems one faces. I liked the way in which it addressed issues from an operating company, equity investor's, and lender's perspectives. Nobody else does that. The anecdotes on various regions were entertaining.

Former investment banker Jeffrey C. Hooke now carries out financial deals in the developing world. He describes the potential for doing business or investing in the world's 156 emerging markets. Hooke is realistic about the great risks - such as unstable governments in impoverished countries - but he highlights future potential. His book is a solidly researched and clearly written guide to assessing the business climate and deciding what types of products make the most sense in different developing countries. After an overview of the nature of emerging markets, why companies want to participate in or avoid these markets, and how to invest and make loans there, he looks at particular markets in Latin America, Asia, Eastern Europe and Africa. We [...] recommend this worthy book to those considering working or investing in emerging markets, but academics or readers interested in how business is conducted in foreign places may also be intrigued.

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.

All one needs to do to realize the importance of this work is to watch CNNFN or any other business news channel, read the wall street journal et al. Merger, merger, merger,. The UN, World Bank, Corporate greed, A juvenile and naive population, which will happily step over the bodies of those less fortunates whose 401's didn't come through or never possessed. Of course for any of this to culminate in the true end game scenario, they must assume a greater yet degree of control of the people and their money. I suggest you read "Transfer: the end of the beginning," by Jerry Furland, also available through amazon.com. I highly recommend both of these books.

Imperial Corporations is an easily readable, fact-filled book portraying the rise of a "standardized culture" across the planet. This is a culture of Pepsico and Madonna, of Bertelmann and American Express. The book is full of scary facts about these major corporations, andothers, such as Sony and Citibank. It reads like a novel and you can breeze through it, though, as I said, it's full of incredibly interesting material on the global corporate power structure.

Dear friends,

Please, for personal reasons, do not publish the previous review of this book even though you can keep the 5 star rate. Many thanks, Gilmar

To everybody that enjoy reading the Stiglitz complains about the IMF mismanagement of country's financial crisis Restructuring Korea Inc. is a better analytical and empirical documented evidence of it. According to the authors much of the Korean crisis was due to the dismantle of the Korean Inc. by the Kim's goverments and the IMF without having a new model to put in place. One of the main thesis of the book is that the Korean economy recovered despite the IMF programme, not because of it. Excellent reading to everybody in the government and private sector of developing countries that did not have a clear picture about "What Happened to Asia" and are still afraid of the possible and probable coming new crisis.

As admitted in the book there is an overemphasis on American governance systems due to the many high quality research papers available by leading US academics. The strong point of this book is that the research has been condensed into concise short papers easily understood by corporate accountants (like myself). It gives a broad view of Agency Theory and the associated costs and benefits of various governance models and real life examples. As I am working in Japan, my interest was in the comparision of systems between Japan & US (as an Australian I was dissapointed at no analysis of the Australian perspective). However, the rapid change in the Japanese corporate environment in the last 1-2 years makes some of the discussions marginally out of date. A lot of the analysis though is so fundamental it is unlikely its basis will change much in the next 10 years. A good read and very thought provoking.

This book was written by a number of famous finance professors including several Novel Prize winners. Each chapter was written by the world class academics and this contains comprehensive topics relating to international finance and governance system. This book is not expensive at all but you can learn a lot.

Galbraith has succeeded in filling the gap that he intended to fill in that specific area of management literature where organization theory and international business research interact. Although I was initially rather skeptical of the scholarly value of the book - since it appears to be particularly aimed at practitioners - I was pleasantly surprised at the wealth of novel theoretical insights that I was able to extract from it. Although it clearly builds on Galbraith's earlier work (for which he is renowned), it definitely adds something to the field. This book will leave those interested in international business (both practice and theory!) with an enhanced understanding of some of the organizational aspects of the multinational corporation that seem to me to be relatively underresearched.

Background: Geography is History!! So went an advertisement from a telecom company a few years ago. And as globalization proceeds to breakdown national boundaries, open up cultures and increases access for economic activity, an awareness of this process of breakdown of geography has become a necessity for any corporation wanting to grow and flourish. Increasing size in this dynamic environment brings with it many challenges including increasing structural complexity, need for quick and seamless communication to manage this complexity, as well as an ability to assess and predict the changing external world, recognize opportunities therein and fashion nimble responses to gain competitive advantage. 'Designing the Global Corporation' is a book written to address such issues in an attempt to help managers structure their thinking towards an increasingly boundaryless world.

Synopsis: Jay Galbraith begins his book by arguing against the KISS principle (Keep It Simple, Stupid!) of organizational design. He recognizes that increasing foreign direct investment (FDI), breakdown of trade barriers and improved communications via media like the Internet along with a corporations need to reach customers globally have increased the complexity of doing business. Corporations could fight this complexity and simplify their operations, or learn to accept, manage and in fact use this complexity as a competitive advantage against simpler competitors.
He then goes on to inject great precision into the concept of a globalization for a corporation and defines 5 different levels of international development in increasing order of complexity. A corporation may develop a competitive advantage in its home country and then try to export this advantage to international destinations, evolving through different levels of international development. Or, a corporation like Logitech, may be designed as a transnational corporation from its very inception, with hardware R&D located in Switzerland, software development in California, manufacturing in Taiwan and sales in every country. Evolution from level 1 to level 5 may not be inevitable and/or desirable, with many companies deciding to settle into a particular niche depending upon the nature of their business and their long-term goals.
The rest of the book is devoted to a very clear, well-illustrated nuts and bolts description of designing global corporations with different levels of internationalization. The geographical entity headed by a country manager, multinational single business units and the multinational multi dimensional organizations are described in great detail. Underlying theme of this entire discussion is that the structure of the organization has to cater to its overall strategy, and the former has to change as the latter evolves.
The author spends considerable time and space on the need and means for developing informational and decision-making networks within such complex organizations. Here again he describes 5 different types of networks in increasing order of complexity beginning with informal voluntary communication and going up to a formally structured matrix organization. He discusses the advantages and limitations of each and how such networks may be used to propagate the agenda of the corporation. As a corporation increases its level of internationalization, it has to deal with increasingly complex networks that transcend geography, business function and culture.
He ends the book by describing the 5 dimensions that a global corporation must learn manage in order to remain successful. These 5 dimensions are managing functions, geographies, product lines (or business units), customers and solutions.
Finally, he writes, "Regardless of whether globalization continues, stalls, or even reverses, the models described in this book should continue to guide organizing choices.....and as businesses struggle to compensate and thrive on their ever expanding journey, the ideas and structures presented in this book can serve as a road map."

Critique: The author has presented his ideas very clearly and illustrated them with many examples from real companies. The organization of the book follows a logical flow of thoughts and the language used makes it fairly readable. Having said that, the complexity of many of the concepts presented in this book precludes it from being a casual bedtime reading, rather it demands full concentration and a careful attention to detail from the reader.

Globalization has become such an overused buzzword that it has become nearly devoid of meaning. Here, author Jay R. Galbraith injects new precision into the concept: Going international means plenty of hard work and painstaking attention to detail. Because every company's strategy, market and competitive advantage is unique, it's impossible to define one single, perfect, organizational structure for an international business, but Galbraith provides some fascinating alternatives to consider. Although Galbraith's book is jargon-filled and dense, it is full of useful, illustrative examples. He manages to reduce international business to its simplest form: A company develops an edge, and then tries to take it abroad. This involves many challenges, which Galbraith describes in rich detail. So if your company is multinational - or wants to be - we at getAbstract recommend this book to you. It is tailor-made for executives who are involved in international business - or who hope to expand their global reach.