Slide 3

THE DEMANDS OF MANAGING in an international operating environment changed considerably over the
past decade.

In an increasing number of industries, the benefits of exploiting global economies of scale and scope
enhanced the need for integration and coordination of activities.

At the same time, volatile exchange rates, industrial policies of host governments, resistance of
consumers to standardized global products, and the changing economies of flexible manufacturing
technologies increased the value of more nationally responsive differentiated approaches.

And with the emergence of competitive battles among a few large firms with comparable resources and
skills in global-scale efficiency and nationally responsive strategies, the ability to learn— to transfer
knowledge and expertise from one part of the organization to others worldwide—became more
important in building durable competitive advantage.

Managers of multinational companies (MNCs) are now faced with the task of optimizing efficiency,
responsiveness, and learning simultaneously in their worldwide operations—which suggests new
strategic and organizational challenges.

Slide 6:

An example of ethnocentrism in culture is the Asian cultures across all the countries of Asia. Throughout
Asia, the way of eating is to use chopsticks with every meal. These people may find it unnecessary to
find that people in other societies, such as the American society, eat using forks, spoons, knives, etc.
Since these countries use chopsticks to eat every meal, they find it foolish for other cultures to not use
utensils similar to chopsticks; however, they do accept the fact that they use different utensils for
eating. This example is not something extreme that could lead to genocide or war, but it is a large
enough gap between these cultures for people to see their way of eating as the natural or best way to
typically eat their food.

Another example of ethnocentrism is colonialism. Colonialism can be defined as cultural domination

with enforced social change. Colonialism refers to the social system in which the political conquests by
one society of another leads to “cultural domination with enforced social change”. A good example to
look at when examining colonialism is the British overtake of India. The British had little understanding
of the culture in India which created a lot of problems an unrest during their rule. [10]