RELATIONSHIPS & CULTURE Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

RELATIONSHIPS & CULTURE - Essay Example Cultural distance and differences are widely used constructs in making international business relating to expansion of foreign investments, entry mode choice, and performance of affiliates (Shenkar, 2001). Likewise, relationship marketing emphasises on customer retention and satisfaction instead of focusing dominantly on transactions and sales. It is said that an organisation needs to improve its level of competitiveness in a globalised market in order to survive the competition if not to dominate it, and marketing tactics help tremendously in achieving this endeavor. Literatures say that among these tactics is the employment of relationship marketing that aids the firm to market internationally its product or service. A firm's external operations entail an understanding of how cultural differences affect international marketing decisions. This understanding can be utilised in predicting strategic movements and responses of competitors and thus enables the firm to design effective competitive strategies. International sales negotiations are the primary focal point of this understanding (Tse, et al., 1988, p. 81). The internal conduct of multinational firms also needs knowledge of the impact of culture on marketing decisions. ... For organisations with diverse cultural backgrounds, the interpretation of cues for standard operating procedures may vary because of these cultural backgrounds, imploring the need to understand cultural differences in international marketing. Another reason as to why a good understanding of cultural differences is important in international marketing is because this knowledge of cultural influences permits the firms to adapt to such differences, enabling it to reduce the so called 'noisy communications" as well as eliminate errors in decision-making. These are said to occur likely out of lack of common understanding, which stems from lack of understanding of cultural differences (Montgomery and Weinberg, 1979 in Tse, et al., 1988, p. 81). It is already a given knowledge that in the past, especially prior to the globalised era, Western managerial culture dominated multinational firms. However, this trail has changed a long way as shown by the recent trends' increase in international trade and foreign direct investment of Asian multinational firms and North American subsidiaries that operate in Asian countries. This implies furtherance of salient understanding of cultural impact on an organisation's internal operations (Tse , et al., 1988). This emphasis on cultural differences is exemplified by the case of China's businesses, which experience isolation from contacts with international markets for many years. Thus, their marketing decision processes have relatively represented pure form of cultural influence on business behavior caused by cultural impacts. It is suggested that an Oriental business community with strong and continuous interaction with the Western businesses is what

High Profile corporate collapses in the last two decades have been Assignment

High Profile corporate collapses in the last two decades have been attributed to laxities in the regulatory framework of financi - Assignment Example In June 2002, the EU has adopted a regulation to prepare their financial statements in agreement with IFRS or IAS which is required to be followed by all listed European Union companies in the regulated markets. Companies are open to select their national reporting standards and follow Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) for associate and subsidiary companies. The regulation is applicable only on the consolidated accounts. The regulation came into consideration from the year 2005 (PwC, 2005). With an aim to develop common accounting standards in 1973, nine countries including UK formed International Accounting Standards Committee (IASC). Over hundred countries have it’s become members. Countries, especially bigger economies, are bringing in their own perspectives and adapting to this accounting standards. In coming up with common acceptable accounting standards IASC had to deal with accounting conflictions (Accounting Standards Board, 1999). IASC has not been succe ssful in resolving all the conflicts with all member countries as it is nearly an impossible task to fully satisfy more than hundred accounting bodies from across the world. International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) or International Accounting Standards (IAS) is applicable to more than 90 countries. ... Except for some changes in IAS 39 relating to the fair value of financial instruments, IFRS 6 and some of the IFRIC interpretations, European Union has now endorsed IFRS (IFRS, 2012). The EU regulation is only enforceable for listed companies. A member state has an alternative to extend the use of IFRS within their jurisdiction to unlisted companies. Department of Trade and Industry has said that the unlisted companies would still be permitted to adopt IFRS over UK GAAP as there is no mandatory instructions for unlisted companies to move to IFRS (IFRS, 2012). Arguments in favour of financial reporting regulation Mainstream economistic reasoning has also been influential in respect of the issue of how best to regulate financial accounting. Some of the above perspectives have implications for how accounting should be regulated. Perspectives that assume the existence of perfect information clearly would not see the need for further regulation. Under the scenario of perfect and complete markets, a company that accepted all projects with non-negative present values would simply have to announce these present values or cash flows to the market, if we take a slightly less abstract view (although strictly in such reasoning this would automatically happen for markets to be perfect and complete). The value of the company would then equal the present value of these cash flows, which in turn would equal the market price. Under these circumstances one may even question whether annual reports are necessary. Within mainstream economic thinking (that assumes ‘perfect and complete markets’ to maximise well-being and the role of ‘accounting information’ to be confined to serving markets), the answer to this question would be in the negative as it would be to the question ‘is