The Global Environment of Business

Book excerpt: Frederick Guy's The Global Environment of Business offers a multi-dimensional analysis of the environment in which international business operates. International: How do multi-national corporations, nation states, regional trade blocs, markets, and global institutions interact to shape the international economic system? Who wins and who loses when the economy internationalizes? Is internationalization leading to a global world, or a regional one? How will efforts to curtail and adapt to climate change affect international business? Technological and historical: How has the business environment been shaped by production systems, new methods of business organization, information and communication technology, transport, and the process of technological change itself? Comparative: How do institutional differences affect national specialization and economic performance? How do the business systems of Europe differ from that of the United States, or those of East Asia from those of Latin America? Why do location and face-to-face contact matter in an age of high-speed communication and cheap long-distance transportation? Why have some countries grown so fast while others remain poor? The Global Environment of Business draws on extensive research by economists, political scientists, sociologists, geographers, and business historians. There is more theory and academic debate here than in most books on the subject, but it is presented and explained clearly, and illustrated with lots of examples.