Understanding complexity is something everyone should strive for, especially in businesses facing, or wanting to face, the international marketplace, but the path to real understanding of a complex landscape is an arduous one, especially \u2013 where businesses are concerned \u2013 in a constantly evolving marketplace. But in addition to this constant change, businesses also have to deal with the conflict that arises in the marketplace.<\/p>\n
A thesis by Chloe Friederichsen, a student at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia (USA), is an interesting work that seeks to analyse both the dense network of relationships between international trade, business management and corporate culture.<\/p>\n
Entitled \u201cCulture & Conflict: Intertwined with International Business\u201d, her thesis starts with a statement of fact. Friederichsen writes, \u201cToday international transactions have become a very common entity in the business world. With this newfound trend comes the need to understand the complexities of culture and conflict management in order for an international business to succeed with a competitive edge.\u201d<\/p>\n
A business can\u2019t take on a new market without first knowing a great deal about that market, its people, its politics, and the rules at play. This is a fairly obvious statement, but one that is difficult to fully put into practice, and yet the relationships between the way of doing business, the conflict that can arise in international business, and the ability to adapt to and understand the market and the competition are aspects of the problem that need to be understood well in order then understand the causes of success or failure in the global economy.<\/p>\n
The work of Chloe Friederichsen is organised into two parts. She first analyses the elements involved in understanding business management and the approach to the marketplace. In order to better understand these aspects, the author looks at the examples of Coca-Cola and Motorola and their experiences in China. The second part of the study then looks at each of the aspects of culture one by one, including religion, ethics, communication, value systems, and how other aspects of culture intertwine to give rise to the various characteristics of a society\u2019s culture. Examples used here include McDonald\u2019s in India, as well as Pepsi-Cola, British Telecom, and IBM.<\/p>\n
In the end, Friederichsen reaches an interesting conclusion, that putting together the mosaic made up of different cultures, different markets and the complexities of both is a challenge that we all must overcome, and a quote from Henry Ford sums the entire work up nicely: \u201cComing together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success.\u201d<\/p>
Culture & Conflict: Intertwined with International Business\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Chloe Friederichsen \u00a0Senior Thesis Liberty University, Spring 2014<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Understanding complexity is something everyone should strive for, especially in businesses facing, or wanting to face, the international marketplace, but the path to real understanding of a complex landscape is an arduous one, especially \u2013 where businesses are concerned \u2013 in a constantly evolving marketplace. But in addition to this constant change, businesses also have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56,57],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-50495","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-corporate-culture","category-insights"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n