International Trade vs International Business - Essay Example

Although the differences may not be immediately apparent, the fact of the matter is that international trade and international business exhibit different nuances within the world of business. Not the least of these reasons is concentric upon the fact that the behavioral roles of managers, politicians, and individuals within the international economic system exhibit different roles based upon which of these two items is being defined and/or discussed.

In relation to international business, this is an activity that takes place on what can be understood as a micro level. In this sense, key players within the private sector engage in an exchange of goods and services which directly mirror the same process that occurs on a national and/or domestic level.

In this way, one can understand that role that individuals, managers, and other shareholders hold within this level of the transaction as being the most important; with the roles of politicians only being tangential or secondary as long as no barriers to exchange exist (Buckley 2009, p. 330). With relation to the term international trade, this encompasses the activities that have previously been discussed within the preceding paragraph detailing international business activities. For this reason, the international trade definition is something of a catch-all definition in which all of the activities of international business and the tangential and related aspects thereof are included.

Moreover, when one discusses the term international trade, there is a level of emphasis that must necessarily be placed on the role that politicians play with regards to regulating the flow of trade between two or more countries (Rasche 2012, p. 681). Although this same type of regulation is exhibited within international business, the term international trade necessarily implies a more macro view of the system as opposed to one that is purely focused upon a more micro approach. The fact of the matter remains that trade and international business are in effect two sides of the same coin.