Week 8 - Implementing the Strategy

Question 1

What are the 3 key management positions and their responsibilities?

Answer 1

1. Global business manager - develop global efficiency and competitiveness
2. Worldwide functional manager - Provide support to line managers, particularly by diffusing innovations and transferring knowledge on a worldwide basis
3. Country subsidiary manager

Traditional role:
• Source of sales and profits
• Access to local factors of production
• Leverage parent company assets and resources

New role:
• Bicultural Interpreter
• National defender & advocate
• Frontline implementer of corporate strategy

Question 2

Identify and explain the 3 roles of the global business manager.

Answer 2

1. Global business strategist - Because competitive interaction increasingly takes place on a global chessboard, in any given business only a manager with a worldwide perspective and responsibility can assess the strategic position and the organizational capability to respond. To allow such assessment, companies must configure their information, planning, and control systems so that they can be consolidated into consistent, integrated reports available to the global business manager.
2. Architect of Asset and Resource Configuration - Closely tied to the challenge of shaping an integrated business strategy is the global business manager’s responsibility for overseeing the worldwide location of key assets and resources. The challenge to the business manager is to shape the future configuration by leveraging existing resources and capabilities, and linking them in a configuration that resembles the integrated network form.
3. Cross-Border Coordinator - deciding on sourcing patterns and managing cross-border transfer processes. As companies build transnational structures and capabilities, the task of coordinating flows of materials, components, and finished products becomes extremely complex

Question 3

Identify and explain the 3 roles of the worldwide functional manager.

Answer 3

1. Worldwide intelligence scanner - In transnational companies, functional managers are often most effectively linked through informal networks that are nurtured and maintained through frequent meetings, visits, and transfers. Through such personal linkages, these man- agers develop the contacts and relationships that enable them to transmit information rapidly around the globe. In this way, the functional managers at the corporate level become the linchpins in a worldwide intelligence scanning effort. In addition, they also play a vital role as facilitators of communication and as the corporate repositories of specialist information.
2. Cross-Pollinator of “Best Practices” - corporate functional managers who engage in frequent travel, con- duct regular reviews, and develop networks of informal contacts are often the first to identify where best practices are being developed and implemented. Furthermore, they are also in a position to arrange cross-unit visits and transfers, host conferences, form task forces, or take other initiatives that will expose others to the best new ideas. And once personal contacts have been made, relationships developed, and trust built, the ability to move ideas and initiatives from one unit to another becomes much easier. In this way, the functional managers become the midwives of the practice transfer process.
3. Champion of Transnational Innovation
   - Locally leveraged innovation: These managers are in an ideal position to scan their companies’ worldwide operations and identify local innovations that have applications elsewhere.
   - Globally linked innovations: This type of innovation fully exploits the company’s access to worldwide information and expertise by linking and leveraging intelligence sources with internal centers of excellence, wherever they may be located. Requires functional managers to play a more sophisticated role.

Question 4

What kinds of support can top level corporate management provide?

Answer 4

1. Provide long-term direction and purpose
   • Clarity: simplicity, relevance, reinforcement, etc.
   • Continuity: commitment to direction and purpose
   • Consistency: shared by all
2. Leverage corporate performance
   • Control systems based on supporting actions of managers, not directing them
   • Coordinate and legitimize diverse perspectives

3. Ensure continuous renewal
• Ensure an external orientation
• Develop a questioning attitude
• Legitimize new initiatives
• Help the organization embrace, not deny, complexity

Question 5

Explain the role of the bicultural interpreter.

Answer 5

• Not only must the individual have a sensitivity to and understanding of the national culture, he or she must also be comfortable in the
  corporate culture at the MNE.
  -Much more than being an information conduit to communicate the corporation’s goals, strategies, and values to a group of employees located far away from the parent company.
• The country subsidiary manager must also interpret those broad goals and strategies so they become meaningful objectives and priorities at the local level of operation.
  -They must translate the core corporate values in a way that is sensitive to local cultural norms.
  -They must also be able to present to corporate headquarters the ideas and proposals generated in their local environment in a way that reflects an appreciation of the company’s strategy and values.

Question 6

Explain the role of the National Defender and Advocate

Answer 6

1. Requires that the country manager ensure the overall corporate strategies, policies, and organization processes are appropriate from the national organization’s perspective. If the interests of local constituencies are violated or the subsidiary’s position risks being compromised by the global strategy, it is the country manager’s responsibility to become the defender of national needs and perspectives.
2. The country manager must become an advocate for his or her national organization’s role in the corporation’s worldwide integrated system of which it is a part. As MNEs develop a more transnational strategy, national organizations compete not only for corporate resources but also for roles in the global operations. To ensure that each unit’s full potential is realized, country managers must be able to identify and represent their national organization’s particular assets and capabilities, as well as the ways in which they can contribute to the MNE as a whole.