Question

According to the multinational management textbook how does a phenomena such as wars, terrorist activities, and bird flu might alter the progression of globalization. What should a multinational manager do to deal with such situations?

Answer 1

The phenomena as mentioned, alters the progress of globalization in a way that it slows down the globalization due to the decrease in movement of goods from one country to another country, people not going to  and from the affected countries  and governments issuing advisories against movement to those nations who are prone to the wars, epidemic scenarios and or terrorism. For example, The movement of people and other resources to China due to Corona virus in recent times, has negatively affected the globalization. Though, it also creates a scope of opportunity in the form of strategic alliances and tie up among the nations to fight with these problems. It makes these nations come together, that can facilitate globalization drive in the recent times. So, path of globalization gets altered with initial negativity to be countered by the increased level of international cooperation to fight the phenomena.

A multinational manager should take different initiatives to deal with such situations. The first initiative should be to develop domestic markets as well so that products and services can be served in local markets as well to compensate for the loss of export business. The second initiative should be to build channels to procure resources of a different nature from the local markets. It will help maintain the operations to continue and does not get disturbed due to a cut from the rest of the world. The third initiative should be to make the organization ready to fight such challenges and become ready with contingency plans.