Marketing - the sum of all the activities in the planning, pricing, promoting,

distributing, and the sales of goods and services.

Target Market – specific group of consumers that a company aims to capture

Marketing Mix – a mix of all elements a company uses to market its products
- 4 P`s are Planning, Pricing, Promoting, Producing
Ways in which companies differentiate their products
- Product Strategy: design, features, packaging, warrants
Discount Pricing Strategies (pricing products at lower prices that the completion) vs.
Premium Pricing Strategies (pricing products at a higher price that the completion)
Distribution Strategy/Place Strategy: path of goods from producer to retailer to
consumer, Strategic decision involved in placing business in specific areas.
Promotional Strategy: used to inform, persuade, remind and help sell products to
consumers. Involves advertisement, sales discounts and public relations

Human Resource Management – activities an organization caries out to use its

human resources effectively (determining the companies human resource strategy,
staffing, performance evaluation, management development and competition)

Staffing Policy – is concerned with the selection of employees to participate jobs

Expatriate Managers – citizen of one country who is working aboard in one of the
companies subsidiaries

Expatriate Failure – represents the failure of the firms’ selection policies to identify
individuals who will not thrive aboard.

Expatriate Selection – one way to reduce expatriate failure rates is by improving

selection procedures to screen out inappropriate candidates. An executive who
performs in a domestic setting may not be able to adjust in a different cultural setting.

Business Ethics – application of ethical values to business behaviour. Applies to any

aspects of business conduct. Relevant both to the conduct of individuals and to the
conduct of the organization as a whole.

The Ethics of Human Resource Management

- Discrimination, Wages, Privacy of Employment, Occupational Safety and
Health

The Ethics of Production

- Product Testing, Addictive Products, Environmental issues, Dangerous
Products

The Ethics of Intellectual Property, Knowledge and Skills

- Employment Raiding, Industrial Espionage, Type of things being Patented,
Patent, Copyright and Trademark Infringement

The Ethics of Sales and Marketing

- Pricing, Specific Marketing Strategies, Content of Advertisement
Ethics Officers – appointed by companies to limit the company’s legal liability and to
gain public favour. Non ethical – fraud, corruption, abuse scandals.

Performance Appraisal Problems – Unintentional bias makes it difficult to evaluate

the performance of expatriate managers objectively. In most cases, two groups
evaluate the performance of expatriate managers, host-nation managers and home-
office managers. The host-nation managers may be bias.

Polycentric approach – requires host country nationals to be hired to manage

subsidiaries, while parent country nationals occupy key positions at corporate
headquarters
- Host-country managers are unlikely to make the mistake arising from cultural
misunderstanding
- Expropriate managers can be very expensive to maintain
Negative:
- Language, barriers, national loyalties and a range of cultural differences may
isolate the corporate headquarters from the various foreign subsidiaries

Geocentric Approach – Seeks the best people for key jobs throughout the
organization, regardless of nationality.
- Enables the firm to make the best use of its human resources
- Enables the firm to build a group of international executives who feel at home
working in another culture
Negatives:
- Many countries want foreign subsidiaries to employ their citizen
- Most countries require firms to provide extensive documentations if they wish
to hire a foreign national instead of a local national
- Training and relocation costs increase when transferring managers from
country to country

The Ethnocentric Approach – An ethnocentric approach is one in which all key

management positions are filled by parent-country nationals.
- Firm may believe the host country lacks qualified individuals to fill senior
management positions
- Firms believe this is the best way to maintain a consistent corporate culture
- Firm is trying to transfer skills and competencies to a foreign operation.
Knowledge underlining a competency cannot be written down or explained
Negative:
- An ethnocentric staffing policy limits advancement opportunities for host-
country nationals
- Adaptation of expatriate managers can take a long time during which they can
make major mistakes