Question 5: Make plausible arguments about foreign direct investment (FDI) motives of the firm. Support your answer with specific examples.
• Apply correct theoretical concepts.
• Make plausible arguments about FDI motives of the firm.
• When you discuss any FDI motive(s), you need to support your answer with specific examples.
• A firm can have a combination of different FDI motives.
Team Assignment
Each team is assigned a firm to study for this assignment, as follows:
Team A1 LG Corporation (South Korea)
You are required to write a collective piece of work of no longer than 3,000 words (including introduction, main body, conclusion, tables and figures, citation, notes and end notes in the text and appendices; excluding the front cover sheet and references) by using the course materials. You are expected to critically analyse the international business strategy of the assigned firm. Support your answers with specific, well-explained, well-analysed real hard facts, data and examplesby consulting various sources of information and data (lecture materials, core textbook, reading lists, books, company websites, company annual reports, business news, academic journals, etc.). You should refer to Appendix 1 for detailed guidance onspecific requirements and expectationsof your answers.Each question has the same marks.
1) Explain whether or not this firm qualifies as a multinational enterprise (MNE). By reading and analysing the annual reports of the firm for the five-year period (2010-2014), report data on the total revenues, domestic revenues, foreign revenues (in absolute values), and the number of foreign subsidiaries of the firm. Calculate the ratio (in percentage) of foreign sales to total sales (FS/TS),and the ratio (in percentage) of foreign subsidiaries to total subsidiaries for each yearfor the five year period (2010-2014).
2) Report data on home region sales, rest of region sales, total regional sales and rest of world sales (in absolute values). Calculate the ratios(in percentage) of home sales to total sales (HOMES/TS), rest of region sales to total sales (ROR/TS), total regional sales to total sales (RS/TS) and rest of world sales to total sales (ROWS/TS) for each year for the five year period (2010-2014). Identify and explain the strategy of the firm (i.e. whether it pursues a global, bi-region oriented, host-region oriented, or home-region oriented strategy). Discuss the strategy that the firm likely pursues in the next five years.
3) Explicitly state and identify the firm in the relevant cell of the FSAs/CSAs matrix (FSAs: firm-specific advantages; CSAs: country-specific advantages). You will need to explicitly discuss the CSAs and FSAs of the firm with supporting data and evidence, and explain how these FSAs have been built and developed.
4) Explicitly state and identify in a figure whether the firm builds its strategy based upon its home country diamond, or whether it uses a double diamond/generalised double diamond approach.
5) Make plausible arguments about foreign direct investment (FDI) motives of the firm. Support your answer with specific examples.
6) Apply appropriate theoretical concept(s) to analyse the type of corporate culture of the firm. Explain whether or not this corporate culture contributes to the FSAs discussed above in question 3.
Format:
You should use headings and sub-headings. Team members often divide the work among themselves, so you need to make sure that the final version is well-integrated and consistent as if it were written by a single author. Notes or Endnotes should be used only if absolutely necessary and must be identified in the text by consecutive numbers, enclosed in square brackets and listed at the end of the essay.
The general format of this team assignment should include the following parts:
Front page: essay title (including the company name), your group, your team number, your names, your student ID numbers, and total word count (word count excludes the front page and references).
Introduction: briefly introduce thecompany background information. You may explain the main objective of this essay, the main arguments/findings, and the limitations of this study, etc.
Main body: you need to cover all the issues in the format of answer-to-question. There is no need to rewrite the questions in your submitted work. You only need to indicate question number (e.g. Question 1, etc.). This will give you more space to present your answers. You may introduce the concepts and frameworks, but you should not spend too much energy on it. You are expected to demonstrate that you are capable of applying these theoretical concepts and frameworks to critically analyse the international business strategy of the firm which you are studying. A good piece of work for this module should focus on a persuasive analysis and argument, based on the hard data, facts and examples which you find. In addition, you are expected to present consistent and interactive arguments of the issues, e.g. hard data and thorough explanation should support your analysis on the strategy of the firm.
Specific expectations
• Research skills: find relevant, interesting, specific, real examples, data, information and hard facts to support your answers.
• Insights: identification of key issues; a clear and consistent focus.
• Analysis: a presentation of information that exhibits an understanding, a capable application of key concepts. The rationale and reasoning is explained logically and clearly.
• Synthesis: relevant incorporation of various concepts and pieces of information.
• Appearance: a clear and concise organization and overall style; good grammar and spelling.
• Coherency: as you are working in a team, the document must appear coherent, so that it does not appear to be made up of several parts, written by different people.
• Consistency: all evidence should be supported by your discussion.
• Originality: an ability to be creative and innovative in research and presentation of information.
Conclusion: a brief summary of the essential arguments/findings for the work.
Tables and figures: It is your decision to put the figures/tables separately or in the text. Each figure/table needs to be fully referenced and explained. Please do not insert any of them without explanation.
References: All sources (e.g. books, articles, internet sites, company annual reports, etc.) used in the assignment must be listed in the text and in the reference. Reference must be Harvard style, and you can find the Harvard style reference at the end of the assignment (Appendix 2).
Appendices (if any).
Marking criteria
The marking criteria are in accordance with the policy of the University of Reading.
FRAMEWORK FOR CLASSIFICATION AND PROGRESSION FOR FIRST DEGREES
(FOR COHORTS ENTERING A PROGRAMME BETWEEN AUTUMN TERM 2007 AND SUMMER TERM 2012)
(Approved by the Senate on 5 March 2008 (updated October 2012, April 2014).
http://www.reading.ac.uk/web/FILES/exams/UgClassification-2007-2012.pdf
Penalty for late submission
Penalties for late submission will be in accordance with the University policy:
Where the piece of work is submitted after the original deadline (or any formally agreed extension to the deadline): 10% of the total marks available for that piece of work will be deducted from the mark for each working day (or part thereof) following the deadline up to a total of five working days.
Where the piece of work is submitted more than five working days after the original deadline (or any formally agreed extension to the deadline): a mark of zero will be recorded.
For further details, please refer to the full policy statement which is available as Section 6I of the Guide to Policies and Procedures in Teaching and Learning.
Again, the work should be about 3,000 words in length (+10% variation is already included). The front page and references are not counted towards the word limit. Any paper exceeding the word limit will be penalized and marked down.
The deadline for both electronic and hardcopy submission is 14:00pm, Thursday, November 12, 2015. Only one member of your team needs to submit the electronic version to Turnitin on Blackboard.Each time you hand in an essay (hardcopy), you need to attach a signed copy of the department’s plagiarism declaration.
Dr.Quyen T.K. Nguyen
Appendix 1: Detailed guidance
Remember:
• State clearly the theoretical concepts, theories and/or theoretical frameworks, which you apply to answer a particular question.
• Support your answers with convincing arguments.
• Use appropriate data, facts, examples and statistics to substantiate your views.
• Explain thoroughly.
• Analyse critically.
Question 1: Explain why this firm qualifies as a multinational enterprise (MNE). By reading and analysing the annual reports of the firm for the five-year period (2010-2014), report data on the total revenues, domestic revenues, foreign revenues (in absolute values), and the number of foreign subsidiaries of the firm. Calculate the ratio (in percentage) of foreign sales to total sales (FS/TS), and the ratio (in percentage) of foreign subsidiaries to total subsidiaries for each year for the five year period (2010-2014).
• Provide a definition of the theoretical concept of a “multinational enterprise” (MNE) (see Rugman, 1981).
• Read the firm’s annual reports for the five-year period (2010-2014).
• Report and analyse the data on the total revenues (in absolute values), domestic revenues (in absolute values), foreign revenues (in absolute values), and the number of foreign subsidiaries of the firmfor each year for the five-year period (2010-2014) (where possible).
• Calculate the ratio of foreign sales to total sales (FS/TS) in percentagefor each year for the five-year period (2010-2014).
• Calculate the ratio of foreign subsidiaries to total subsidiaries in percentage for each year for the five-year period (2010-2014).
• Explain explicitly why this firm qualifies as an MNE or not.
Question 2: Report data on home region sales, rest of region sales, total regional sales and rest of world sales (in absolute values). Calculate the ratios (in percentage) of home sales to total sales (HOMES/TS), rest of region sales to total sales (ROR/TS), total regional sales to total sales (RS/TS) and rest of world sales to total sales (ROWS/TS) for each year for the five year period (2010-2014). Identify and explain the strategy of the firm (i.e. whether it pursues a global, bi-region oriented, host-region oriented, or home-region oriented strategy). Discuss the strategy that the firm likely pursues in the next five years.
• Read the firm’s annual reports for the five-year period (2010-2014).
• Report and analyse the data on home region sales, rest of region sales, total regional sales, and rest of world sales (in absolute values) for each year for the five-year period (2010-2014).
• Calculate the ratio of home sales to total sales (HOMES/TS) in percentagefor each year for the five-year period (2010-2014).
• Calculate the ratio of rest of region sales to total sales (ROR/TS) in percentagefor each year for the five-year period (2010-2014).
• Calculate the ratio of total regional sales to total sales (RS/TS) in percentage for each year for the five-year period (2010-2014).
• Calculate the ratio of rest of world sales to total sales (ROWS/TS) in percentage for each yearfor the five year period (2010-2014).
• Identify and explain the strategy of the firm based on four typologies of firm strategy (global, bi-region oriented, host-region oriented, or home-region oriented) (see Rugman &Verbeke, 2004).
• Discuss the strategy that the firm likely pursues in the next five years.
Question 3: Explicitly state and identify the firm in the relevant cell of the FSAs/CSAs matrix (FSAs: firm-specific advantages; CSAs: country-specific advantages). You will need to explicitly discuss the CSAs and FSAs of the firm with supporting data and evidence, and explain how these FSAs have been built and developed.
• Draw the figure of the FSAs/CSAs matrix.
• Explicitly state and identify the firm in the relevant cell, and explain why it is in a particular cell.
• Explicitly discuss the CSAs and FSAs of the firm with supporting data and evidence.
• Explain how these FSAs have been built and developed: for each type of FSA(s) which you identify that the firm might possess, you need to provide specific example(s). When you discuss the firm’s FSAs in relative to rivals/ competitors, you need to provide data and/or facts to support and to substantiate your claims.
Question 4: Explicitly state and identify in a figure whether the firm builds its strategy based upon its home country diamond, or whether it uses a double diamond/generalised double diamond approach.
• Explicitly state and identify in a figure whether the firm builds its strategy based upon its home country diamond, or whether it uses a double diamond/generalised double diamond approach.
• Analyse all components of the theoretical framework which you use.
• Support your answers with relevant data, facts and/or examples directly related to the assigned firm.
Question 5: Make plausible arguments about foreign direct investment (FDI) motives of the firm. Support your answer with specific examples.
• Apply correct theoretical concepts.
• Make plausible arguments about FDI motives of the firm.
• When you discuss any FDI motive(s), you need to support your answer with specific examples.
• A firm can have a combination of different FDI motives.
Question 6: Apply appropriate theoretical concept(s) to analyse the type of corporate culture of the firm. Explain whether or not this corporate culture contributes to the FSAs discussed above in question 3.
• Describe the type of corporate culture of the firm.
• Explain whether or not this corporate culture contributes to the FSAs discussed above in question 3.
• Provide specific supporting examples where necessary.
Appendix 2: Harvard Reference format
You should cite publications in the text: (Adams, 2006) using the first named author’s name or (Adams and Brown, 2006) citing both names of two, and (Adams et al., 2006), when there are three or more authors. At the end of the paper a reference list in alphabetical order should be supplied:
For books:
Surname, Initials (year), Title of Book, Publisher, Place of publication.
e.g. Harrow, R. (2005), No Place to Hide, Simon & Schuster, New York, NY.
For book chapters:
Surname, Initials (year), “Chapter title”, Editor’s Surname, Initials, Title of Book, Publisher, Place of publication, pages.
e.g. Calabrese, F.A. (2005), “The early pathways: theory to practice – a continuum”, in Stankosky, M. (Ed.), Creating the Discipline of Knowledge Management, Elsevier, New York, NY, pp. 15-20.
For journals
Surname, Initials (year), “Title of article”, Journal Name, volume, number, pages.
e.g. Capizzi, M.T. and Ferguson, R. (2005), “Loyalty trends for the twenty-first century”, Journal of Consumer Marketing, Vol. 22 No. 2, pp. 72-80.
For published conference proceedings
Surname, Initials (year of publication), “Title of paper”, in Surname, Initials (Ed.), Title of published proceeding which may include place and date(s) held, Publisher, Place of publication, Page numbers.
e.g. Jakkilinki, R., Georgievski, M. and Sharda, N. (2007), “Connecting destinations with an ontology-based e-tourism planner”, in Information and communication technologies in tourism 2007 proceedings of the international conference in Ljubljana, Slovenia, 2007, Springer-Verlag, Vienna, pp. 12-32.
For unpublished conference proceedings
Surname, Initials (year), “Title of paper”, paper presented at Name of Conference, date of conference, place of conference, available at: URL if freely available on the internet (accessed date).
e.g. Aumueller, D. (2005), “Semantic authoring and retrieval within a wiki”, paper presented at the European Semantic Web Conference (ESWC), 29 May-1 June, Heraklion, Crete, available at: http://dbs.uni-leipzig.de/file/aumueller05wiksar.pdf (accessed 20 February 2007).
For working papers
Surname, Initials (year), “Title of article”, working paper [number if available], Institution or organization, Place of organization, date.
e.g. Moizer, P. (2003), “How published academic research can inform policy decisions: the case of mandatory rotation of audit appointments”, working paper, LeedsUniversityBusinessSchool, University of Leeds, Leeds, 28 March.
For encyclopedia entries (with no author or editor)
Title of Encyclopedia (year) “Title of entry”, volume, edition, Title of Encyclopedia, Publisher, Place of publication, pages.
e.g. Encyclopaedia Britannica (1926) “Psychology of culture contact”, Vol. 1, 13th ed., Encyclopaedia Britannica, London and New York, NY, pp. 765-71.
For newspaper articles (authored)
Surname, Initials (year), “Article title”, Newspaper, date, pages.
e.g. Smith, A. (2008), “Money for old rope”, Daily News, 21 January, pp. 1, 3-4.
For newspaper articles (non-authored)
Newspaper (year), “Article title”, date, pages.
e.g. Daily News (2008), “Small change”, 2 February, p. 7.
For electronic sources
If available online, the full URL should be supplied at the end of the reference, as well as a date that the resource was accessed.
e.g. Castle, B. (2005), “Introduction to web services for remote portlets”, available at: http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/library/ws-wsrp/ (accessed 12 November 2007).
Standalone URLs, i.e. without an author or date, should be included either within parentheses within the main text, or preferably set as a note (Roman numeral within square brackets within text followed by the full URL address at the end of the text.