Drawing on examples from the US, Japan, Great Britain and Other European Countries, Discuss How Differences in National Development Have Affected Corporate Strategy.

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Drawing on examples from the US, Japan, Great Britain and Other European Countries, Discuss How Differences in National Development Have Affected Corporate Strategy

George Demain

The course of any one countries development is a route which would have involved a huge and diverse number of factors. These have ranged from the most basic and unchangeable, such as global position, through to complex factors such as the implementation of political ideologies that have resulted a particular type of regime or government in a country. These factors, and more, have weighed heavily on a countries developmental road, and meant that there have been many inherent differences between countries, politically, economically and socially to name but a few. Until relatively recently, a company’s goals and strategies have been hugely dominated by the particular national development route of a country, and the differences between country’s this has created. One of the results of the interactions between the differing factors that created different national development paths was that companies from different countries followed different practises and strategies, most of which were in some way strongly entwined with the development of the home country. For example, the Japanese culture of collective spirit and commitment led to an implementation of these aspects in business methods, shown by the so called ‘life time employment’ ideals, and the strong relationships companies have with suppliers (Abe & Fitzgerald, xxxx). This essay will provide more examples of this relationship between company and country, and its affect on national development and corporate strategy. For the sake of this analysis, the essay will concentrate mostly on Japan and the US, highlighting the effects of factors such as culture and location, and analysing how these factors have affected the goals and strategies of companies from those countries, providing proof that national development has had a massive role to play in corporate strategy.

However, this essay will also show that there has been a progressive movement away from dependence on the national development of a country for the formulation of a company’s goals and strategies, and that the impact and importance of the particular home country that a company starts off in has waned .Indeed, it will show that the combination of globalisation and trade liberalization has led to a huge decline in the importance of national development in corporate strategy. Internationalisation, globalization and increased competition have meant that the traditional barriers to global growth have fallen, and with them have gone the old reliance on national development and identity to formulate strategy. Companies now base their strategies not on national development, but global development. True market leaders are aware that markets are now international, and corporate strategy must be adjusted to take this into account. As Schmidt said in his 1995 paper, multinational corporations are tied less and less to nations and national interest, thereby insinuating that national development is no longer a major factor in corporate strategy.

However, let’s first look at examples of how differences in national development have affected a company’s corporate strategy and goals. The first area to look at is global position, and the resources that a country has access to because of it. The difference between the US and Japan in this respect could hardly be any bigger. The US, the third largest country in the world, has access to a vast array of natural resources that it could harness. Japan, on the other hand, being smaller than that state of California (CIA, 2003) and with practically no natural resources is completely different. How have these differences affected corporate strategy?

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 America has an abundance of natural resources, including huge arable lands, abundant forests, and resources of minerals such as iron ore, coal and oil. This meant that in the early stages of national development, America could look to itself to provide most of its energy needs (this has of course changed). Of course, the vast size of America did originally cause problems, in respect to travel and communication (Chandler, 1992). This problem led to the development of railroads, which had a huge impact on growth, and the telegraph. The railroads meant production could now be sped up as supplies were ...

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