Multinational companies and the importance of international financial management
The amazing development of the transportation system and the internet has enabled an increase of cross-country flow of goods, services, and funds. Companies nowadays can do business beyond domestic boarders. Cross-border exchange of goods, services, and fund has become more and more complex due to the involvement of diverse currencies in international transactions.
Our paper writing will define what a multinational company is, how international finance is different from domestic finance, and why international financial management is important in doing business in the global market.
A multinational corporation is a business firm incorporated in one country that has production and sales in several other countries (Resnick, 2012). According to BusinessDictionary.com, “an enterprise operating in several countries but managed from one (home) country is a multinational company” (Webfinance). There are four categories of multinational corporations: (1) a multinational decentralized corporation with strong home country presence, (2) a global, centralized corporation that acquires cost advantage through centralized production whenever cheaper resources are available, (3) an international business that builds on the parent corporation’s technology or R&D, or (4) a transitional enterprise that combines the three previous approaches. A multinational corporation can be formed by a company with headquarters in a country that establishes new facilities in different countries to produce goods and services elsewhere, through mergers between two or more companies based indifferent countries, or acquisitions and hostile takeovers. Multinational companies are a ma...
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...market face the complexity of the international finance that is different from the domestic finance in three dimensions: foreign exchange and political risks, market imperfections, and opportunity set.
Thus, foreign exchange and political risks, market imperfections, and opportunity set are unavoidable dimensions to take into consideration while deciding to go global. And International Financial Management is designed to provide today’s financial managers with an understanding of fundamental concepts and tools necessary to become effective global managers. It implies that understanding and managing foreign exchange and political risks and coping with the market imperfections have become important parts of financial managers’ job. Identifying and solving the underlying business problems linked to these imperfections remain an ongoing challenge and profit opportunity
The coins made in gold, silver and bronze were traded during Roman Empire and the shortage of coins created a barrier for money circulation. However with the establishment of paper money, a sophisticated banking, global clearing system and electronic money, the global financial system evolved with a worldwide framework of legal agreements. In the Global Financial market, foreign currencies issued by the world, countries are traded by the buyers and sellers using currency exchange rates. Now a day, it is very common practices of companies in one country to raise capital in a foreign country by listing their stocks on major foreign exchanges given the growth of equity markets are becoming more globalized (SNHU, 2015).
Drab,B.(2005) Deterniments of Nominal Exchange Rates, Unpublished paper, International Financial Management, Harvard Business School, U.S.
Hennart, J-F (2001) Theories of the Multinational Enterprise, In Rugman A. M. and T. L. Brewer (eds.) (2001) The Oxford Handbook of International Business, OUP, Oxford
The large-scale multinational financial giants are probably represented by the renowned investment banks such as Goldman Sachs, UBS, D...
International investing is something that many investors find that they can benefit from for many reasons. Two of the main reasons why investors choose to invest in foreign markets are growth and diversification. Growth allows investors the potential to take advantage of new opportunities in foreign emerging markets. International markets can potentially offer opportunities that might not be available in the United States. Diversification allows investors to spread out their risk to different markets and foreign companies other than those just in the United States allowing them to potentially create larger returns on their investment as well as reducing risks. (U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, 2012) While investing internationally can be a very lucrative and rewarding decision, there are also extra risks involved with investing internationally. One of the main risks that international investors encounter is foreign exchange risk also known as currency risk. Currency risk is a financial risk that is created by contact with unforeseen changes in the exchange rate between two currencies. These changes can cause unpredictable gains or losses when profits from investments are converted from a foreign currency to the United Stated dollar. There are precautions that can be taken by investors to potentially lower their risk of currency value fluctuations and other risk factors that are present in international investing. (Gibley, 2012)
Multinational enterprises date back to the era of merchant-adventurers, when the Dutch East India Company and the Massachusetts Bay Company traversed the world to extract resources and agricultural products from colonies (Gilpin 278-79). While contemporary multinational corporations (MNCs) do not command the armies and territories their colonial counterparts did, they are nevertheless highly influential actors in today’s increasingly globalized world.
Today, many companies enter the global market, and some companies have become extremely successful in the global marketplace and others still struggling. In Theodore Levitt’s article “The Globalization of Markets”, he states that a well managed corporation focuses on selling standardized products with high quality and low priced instead of focuses on selling on customized products with high cost. Levitt defines the differences between multinational corporation and global corporation, and adopts many specific examples to proves his view. He defines the multinational corporation who operates in many countries and adjust its product based on the taste of specific region. This will result in a high cost to produce the product because company have to input more resource into each individual product. However, global corporation sells similar product worldwide at relative low cost. According to Levitt, the cultural differences are becoming more and more “homogenized”; therefore, becoming a global corporation will lead to the successful of the company in the global market.
In recent decades, the process of globalization has accelerated and the world economy has become increasingly interdependent. The rise in the number of businesses that extensively operate in more than one foreign country, which is known as multinational corporations, plays an important role in the ongoing procedure of globalization. The United Nations has reported that multinational corporations hold one-third of world’s productive assets and control 70 percent of world trade (Schermerhorn et al., 2014). As there is a considerable growth in international businesses, worldwide economy is becoming more highly competitive. The global economy not only offers great opportunities for multinational enterprises but also on the other hand, creates many difficulties for them. Therefore, success in the large-scale economy requires a number of elements. One of the major determinants is dependent on global managers. In the operation of organizations, managers may encounter different international management challenges that restrict their business development. These challenges often include issues associated with the host countries, the global workforce diversity management, management across cultures, difficulties in competitive global business environment as well as in the process of global planning and controlling. This essay is going to discuss the above international management challenges in a broad sense and giving illustration in aspects of each challenge.
Mira Wilkins defines a multinational enterprise (MNE) as a “firm that extends itself over borders to do business outside its headquarters country.” By 1870, a period denoted as industrial capitalism, MNCs started to evolve and the nature...
The foreign exchange market is one of important mechanism in the international business because foreign exchange is an intermediary for all nations in term of the growth of the economy. There are many functions of foreign exchange market in the global economy. In the international business, it uses the foreign exchange markets in four ways. First, the pay...
Multinational enterprise (MNE) is “a company that is headquartered in one country but has operations in one or more other countries” (Rugman and Collinson 2012, p.38) that has at least one office in different countries but centralised home office. These offices coordinate global management in the context of international business. MNEs have increasingly essential influence on the development of the global economy and coordinate with other companies in different business environments. However, there are many issues involved with how MNEs operate well overseas, especially in emerging markets (EMs) (Cavusgil et al., 2013, p.5).
Firstly, multinational corporations are not something new in this 21st century. There are more and more international corporation as people try to boost the process of globalization. The development of these multinational corporations depends on the management of the owners. Transnational strategy is needed in order to operate such a big system of companies. Every nation in this system has to be managed thoroughly in order to help running the corporation, as well as to keep the system as one consistent body of business. Managers also find it important to look for opportunitie...
As a conclusion international business best described as a Globalization. A globalizing business sector advertises viability through rivalry and the division of the work it permits individuals and economies to keep tabs on what they specialize in. It also allows people to go globally. Globalization has stretched the assets, items, administrations and markets accessible to individuals. The increasing set of reliant connections around individuals from distinctive parts of a world that happens to be separated into countries
Nowadays, business is set in a global environment. Companies not only regard their locations or primary market bases, but also consider the rest of the world. In this context, more and more companies start to run multinational business in various parts of the world. In this essay, companies which run multinational business are to be characterized as multinational companies'. By following the globalization campaign, multinational companies' supply chains can be enriched, high costs work force can be transformed and potential markets can be expanded. Consequentially, competitive advantages of companies can be strengthened in a global market. Otherwise, some problems are met in the changed environments in foreign countries at the same time. The changed environments can be divided into four main aspects, namely, cultural environment, legal environment, economic environment and political system problems. All the changed environments make problems to multinational companies. In particular, problems which are caused by changed culture environment are the most serious aspect of running a multinational business. This essay will discuss these problems and give some suggestions to solve them.
International business contains all business transactions private and governmental, sales, investments, logistics, and transportation that happen between two or more regions, nations and countries beyond their political limits. Generally, private companies undertake such transactions for profit governments undertake them for profit and for political reasons. It refers to all those business activities which involve cross border transactions of goods, services, resources between two or more nations. Transaction of economic resources includes capital, skills, and people. for international production of physical goods and services such as finance, banking, insurance, and construction.