How Globalisation Promotes International Trade - Case Study Example

International Business Introduction As an integral aspect of modernisation, globalisation affects business in numerous ways. In the current economicclimate, globalisation has created conditions that have either facilitated or impeded the growth of international trade. International retail has also grown to become a vital component of the global economy. In the last century, retail has made the biggest contribution to the improvement of living standards and the growth of domestic economies. The internationalisation of retail has allowed companies like Tesco to expand their operations to foreign markets, grow their revenues, and widen their visibility. This paper will examine the positive effects of globalisation on international business and use Tesco’s internationalisation to reveal the dynamics of the globalisation of retail and the challenges it poses to multinationals (Tesco). Part A: How Globalisation has facilitated the growth of International Business Globalisation has led to an increase in most economies’ exposure to international transactions. Research shows that this (greater exposure to global transactions) is instrumental in the facilitation of international trade and the growth of economies (Daft & Marcic 2013: 106). Globalisation has considerable implications on both the status of countries and the welfare of individuals. As a consequence, globalisation affects international trade in unique and enduring ways. Globalisation fundamentally changes the manner in which individuals and groups exploit resources in decision-making (Hendry 2013: 28). Economists claim almost ubiquitous backing for free trade or the total exposure of markets to external competition via international trade and investment. This perception stems from the common rationale of competition: open and free trade drives economies to focus their resources on those sectors and products where they are comparably most gainful (Varley 2014: 37). As a result, this focus leads to more national productivity and income via business than would be likely for economies that remain secluded. For example, the United States’ GDP would be much lower if each state were barred from trading with each other, or if the United States did not trade with Mexico and Canada, its two closest neighbours. Without globalisation, each state and country would have to be self-sufficient in many aspects, a feat that is impossible for even the most developed nations. Globalisation has enabled specialisation and, in return, allowed every country to have an economically productive sector that it can rely on to contribute to national development. Through globalisation, investors in Germany can pay for brokerage services from financial advisors in Switzerland, and both parties can enjoy a mutually beneficial cooperation. Through trade liberalisation, globalisation has allowed organisations and individuals to conduct business activities on an increasingly larger scale (Gauzente & Dumoulin 2012: 394). This has, consequently, resulted in the expansion of the labour market and spurred industrial growth. Although globalisation has been associated with the loss of jobs due to extensive use of technology, it has, on average, made the labour market larger and more dynamic (Varley 2014: 76). Through globalisation, sectors that were previously disintegrated and unproductive can be efficient and centralised. This basic but powerful theory of specialisation is the logic economists use to profess their significant perception: globalisation facilitates international trade by growing average incomes and general standards of living in all economies. Individual countries’ trade productivity and prolificacy increase because they can focus their transactions in segments with real gains. There are many other reasons why globalisation could be expected to create cumulative benefits to economies that embrace trade liberalisation, which is one of the main by-products of globalisation (Lustig 2013: 58). Firstly, embracing free trade allows buyers to exploit the greater diversity of products available than would be available in an isolated national economy. Globalisation also allows more variety with respect to the prices and qualities of products while minimising the cost to families of attaining a specific level of consumption privileges (Harrison & St. John 2013: 30). In the same context, national enterprises gain greater access to numerous inputs of various types and quality that they can use in production processes, hence increasing productivity. Globalisation grows the sizes and number of markets to which national producers can export their products, allowing them more opportunities to prosper. A recent investigation of the effects of Vietnam’s 1993 resolution to veto restrictions on rice exportation revealed considerable benefits for stakeholders in the country’s rice industry, with a huge decline in rural poverty and less use of child labour (Daft & Marcic 2013: 25). Foreign competition usually works against inefficient national monopolies, reducing prices to as low as the production costs improving the economic power of consumers. For example, in many developing nations the move in the 1990s to liberalise their telecommunications sectors has drastically widened the variety of utilities for domestic consumers (Musso 2014: 25). An affiliated impact is that more exposure to international competition normally compels inefficient domestic businesses to reduce their productivity or even halt operations if they cannot allocate sufficient investment to enhance output and compete. Economists view such rationalisation of production as an advantage since it frees labour and capital from misuse and directs it towards more productive businesses and new ventures (Hendry 2013: 8). It can be perceived as the globalisation commensurate with the common theory of creative regression using innovation and rivalry. Another example of the significant impact of globalisation on international trade is in the information content of licensing, foreign direct investment (FDI) and imports. Imported capital products could be more efficient in comparison to locally produced versions (Varley 2014: 64). Multinational businesses and licensed joint ventures should are usually accompanied by more sophisticated technologies or advanced production methods that typically generate higher productivity in local industries (Dawson & Mukoyama 2013: 14). Such “overflows” can occur in different ways, including basic replication of products and technologies, the sharing of innovation benchmarks between multinational businesses and their input suppliers, and the leaking of related information as technicians switch jobs. Economists normally cite the significant economic benefits that are an indirect result of globalisation. Globalisation facilitates international labour migration, which is a catalyst of international trade. The biggest and most obvious beneficiaries are migrants, who generally enjoy much higher wages in their adopted countries (e.g., the United States and the United Kingdom) than they potentially could in their countries of origin, which are often developing nations. Every year, these migrants remit billions back to their relations; this constitutes a major source of income in developing nations. In addition, it helps poor families to save and invest (Centeno & Cohen 2013: 103). Ultimately, this process results in greater benefits to international trade, especially when households that were previously poor can participate in cross-border trade and investment. A recent study conducted in the United States determined that the international value of remittances made by foreign-based workers is almost $200 billion. This is considerably higher than the cumulative flow of financial aid from developed to developing nations. For example, in 5 Latin American countries these remittances represented more than 10% of gross national income (Hendry 2013: 38). By enabling international migration, globalisation allows the transfer of technical expertise from developed to developing countries. Consequently, citizens of developing countries acquire vital business skills that they can use to conduct global business activities. This is an often overlooked benefit that globalisation has on international trade. For example, in the United Kingdom, there is a high demand for foreign software developers among organisations in the information technology (IT) field (Daft & Marcic 2013: 46). These kinds of benefits, which result indirectly from globalisation, also contribute towards international trade development. They are well-documented in different countries, particularly developed ones. In fact, they are powerful enough that many economists have produced critical publications defending globalisation and actively lobbying against efforts to stifle the advancement toward investment liberalisation and duty cuts (Dawson & Mukoyama 2013: 14). This perspective of international trade certainly cannot be the complete picture, however, since there are regular news reports about employees being laid off because of outsourcing and the competition of imports and entire cities being rocked by the collapse of factories that were the primary source of employment. Many scholars in private academic institutions and nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) contend that since farmer in developing nations cannot compete with affordable agriculture in the United States and Europe, more trade exposure through globalisation forces them to vacate their lands and promotes rural poverty (Dawson & Mukoyama 2013: 26). Others observe that the heightened economic activity based on increasing investment and trade flows exerts considerable stress on the exploitation of natural resources, drives climate change, and increases pollution. In reality, some reputable economists now question whether globalisation and an international strategy of free trade have more negative than positive net effects (Hendry 2013: 23). Ultimately, however, globalisation, with its multiple impacts, agents, and geneses, is an extremely powerful and intricate factor in international trade. Scholars should focus on providing consistent and innovative analytical views on factor flows and global trade with the intention of creating a comprehensive background within which to examine this phenomenon. International trade and technological development can, for example, have significant impacts on income distribution domestically, regionally, internationally, and across categories of workers (Harrison & St. John 2013: 16). In general, globalisation favours factors of production that can generate high-quality products for export. It usually exacerbates a majority of people and regions that create products and services that offer direct competition to immigrants, inbound FDI, and imports. In many nations in the developed and developing world these effects appear to make income distribution more unequal with time (Varley 2014: 51). Globalisation grows wealth and efficiency in developed and developing countries (Centeno & Cohen 2013: 21). Free international trade and the ratio of trade to domestic production expands national output by improving efficiency and increases per capita income by relaying savings on to consumers. For example, by reducing or eliminating incompetence from the retail supply system, influential international retailers help arrest inflation and increase productivity. Some economists forecast that removing all pending obstacles to free trade would considerably grow global income and significantly benefit developing countries (Dawson & Mukoyama 2013: 53). Globalisation creates advantages by facilitating labour market flexibility in rich countries. Such advantages stem from employee dislocation when there is huge employee turnover across an economy. Flexible labour markets enable employees to be reassigned rapidly to economic sectors where they are not only highly valued but also in high demand (Centeno & Cohen 2013: 17). This also permits workers, especially young employees, to switch jobs easily with limited adverse implications. For example, a young employee can develop skills and acquire experience with their first employers and then join other organisations that offer better working conditions and more benevolent employer-employee relations. Globalisation and global outsourcing are important drivers of the economies of developing countries; this allows them to acquire more influence and capability in the international trade arena. For example, India evolved into a prime location for software development activities due to its cheap, professional, and English-speaking engineers (Musso 2014: 19). In recent times, call centres that offer all types of customer services fashion promising careers for young graduates who cannot become lawyers or doctors. Scores of young Indians perceive such jobs as opportunities for working in multinational organisations for good wages. Currently, the persistent advancement of globalisation is branding the country as a good location for business process outsourcing. This includes payroll, financial, benefits, and accounting services. As a result, an expanding affiliate sector that is worth billions of dollars is raising the living standards of millions of Indians. This is facilitated by the fact that world’s largest legal firms and corporations now outsource financial and legal services like contract management, document analyses, due diligence, and other business processes to Indian companies for between approximately one-tenth and one-third of what they are charged by Western companies offering similar services (Harrison & St. John 2013: 85). The wages of IT professionals in the United States are about ten times that of their counterparts’ in some developing countries. International outsourcing – a direct result of globalisation – will continue existing provided such economic differences exist. Dislocation in job sectors is a by-product of globalisation. This implies that although globalisation leads to job losses in countries, it creates employment in other industries in national economies (Harrison & St. John 2013: 31). Interestingly, while some employees lose their jobs and secure new ones, it can be extremely challenging for others to find employment. The contentious issue between the different parties in the debate, it appears, is whether cumulative benefits that may or may not help domestic economies justify individual job losses (Linstead & Linstead 2013: 46). Supporters of globalisation argue that individual losses are worth the privileges enjoyed by the collective. On the other hand, opponents of globalisation are adamant that this is a misconception. In summary, globalisation facilitates international trade by promoting greater availability and diversity of technology, products, and services. By aggregating knowledge and trading in more products and services, national economies grow and gain from medical and technological advancements. This growth in diversity, even in basic commodities, allows a consumer in Spain to purchase Italian automobiles and Swiss cheese while working with an American computer. Globalisation promotes collective benefits for all consumers and motivates businesses and countries to conduct more international trade in order to meet demand across the world (Linstead & Linstead 2013: 47). Through specialisation and the optimisation of different relative benefits that pertain to quality and efficiency, globalisation facilitates international trade. In foresight, globalisation will remain a central component of international trade. By promoting the free exchange of information and enabling technological sharing, globalisation significantly stimulates international trade (Musso 2014: 67). Part B: Tesco’s Internationalisation and why it has been problematic As Tesco amasses knowledge in its internationalisation process, valuable insights have been learned from factors within or external to the business. Analysis of these different insights, especially when contextualised in intricate single case-level studies, reveals different aspects of Tesco’s internationalisation. In a spatial context, it seems that the company focused its efforts with more knowledge in different sectors in strategic regions or groups looking to become market leaders (Harrison & St. John 2013: 24). One logic for this approach could be that as the retailer gained more experience it acknowledged the significance of national and regional scale economies in profitability. This implies that the company prioritised maintaining geographical concentration over exploiting commercial opportunities in diverse markets. The move to choose a specific market may rely as much on the existence of ideal acquisition targets and the dynamics of likely sellers as it does on market appeal. For Tesco, industry selection was, consequently, combined with its entry strategy (Musso 2014: 59). Obviously, an acquisition-driven growth strategy had been some form of commercial opportunism in which both the financial organisations and senior leadership supporting takeovers justify them after they are approved by the target companies. Industry selection resolutions reflected this opportunistically-driven strategy. In this regard, the biggest insight Tesco acquired is that it should be positioned well enough to exploit quickly the benefits of spontaneous events – opportunities or threats (Stead 2014: 21). Tesco’s approach to managing mistakes, unplanned successes, serendipity, and missteps was of huge significance to the success of its global operations. Earlier evidence also shows that the company has accepted that takeovers are a vital factor in learning. In many instances during its internationalisation process, Tesco has favoured low-risk, small-scale acquisitions to reduce its own human and financial investment in the event of possible economic and political risk in developing nations and to develop local industry experience (Varley 2014: 32). These takeovers have provided the business with invaluable practical opportunities to be “stunned” by markets and learn from them. A willingness to evaluate and respond to input on the results submitted by expatriate and local store managers is a vital lesson. Tesco’s case also shows that multinationals’ internationalisation processes are not always simple and progressive activities. Analysis reveals new perspectives on the complexity of the global retail divestment venture. It seems that the company has acquired rather defining experiences from its divestment activities, while other similar firms’ global industry withdrawals created opportunities to monitor noticeable leads (Jones, Comfort & Hillier 2011: 263). From the Catteau venture, the retailer became embroiled in an ill-advised takeover via several acquisition-related earn-out contracts with Catteau’s leadership that in turn impeded a rapid and prompt exit. A lack of knowledge as a globalist showed in Ireland when Tesco faced the challenge of rebranding, rebuilding and rejuvenating comparably weak branch operations (Centeno & Cohen 2013: 45). Although it is true that such processes provide irrefutable opportunities to upscale operations, the firm later realised that, indeed, its “turnaround” takeovers were imbalanced in their demand for senior leadership’s time and resources. Besides underestimating the degree of effort needed for these types of processes, Tesco agonisingly learned from using a wrong corporate framework in the French market. Many industry observers have stated that the contrasts in centralised and decentralised operating frameworks will affect the global learning process. The company considered its international operations abroad as a business auxiliary and rerouting of its free cash flow; this effectively restricted its corporate learning opportunities (Centeno & Cohen 2013: 49). However, since the late 1990s to date, public retailers had faced considerable pressure from their stockholders to show where and how to add value to international activities. This had a boosting impact. Ambiguity in this regard would have seriously compromised the strategic legitimacy of most retail multinationals and automatically prioritised financial cost of capital caps. In the beginning, Tesco was vague and less confident about the best corporate model with which to grow (Wood, Coe & Wrigley 2014: 18). Effectively, the retailer considered several iterations of the corporate structure before eventually implementing a hybrid framework between centralised and decentralised organisational activities, before ultimately implementing an aggressive industrial structure. Conceivably, more importantly, the formative experiences of the company’s control competencies have shown that it is impossible to successfully implement both organisational structures simultaneously. What is obvious is that based on evaluation of findings concerning learning processes and frameworks, a corporate-driven learning multinational stretches past the “default corporate line” that executives could exploit in vindicating failures or minority entry rankings in new markets and purposefully creates objective internal learning processes to facilitate international learning (Daft & Marcic 2013: 34). Within the background of global retail expansion in Europe, some researchers have insinuated that retailers have been bereft of procedural internal activities to inform their decisions with regards to suitable host market tactics. Some recent studies would unequivocally support this argument at least as far as the promotion of internationalisation frameworks is concerned. It is suggested that innovations and progressive developments are more effectively assimilated by the proactive development and legalisation of internal expansionist mechanisms. In Tesco’s case, the legalisation and development of globalist processes were perhaps rather coincidental as far as expansion into Eastern Europe tallied with its objective of growing the non-food products segment in the United Kingdom (Wood, Coe & Wrigley 2014: 15). The onus was then on the implementation of what the retailer had learned from creating a new formatting that suited non-food products in foreign markets. By analysing the competitive behavioural undercurrents of Tesco vis-à-vis the strategic global moves, it is clear that the company – as well as similar retail multinationals – was regularly involved in the trading of threats at the organisational, spatial level. At the organisational level, internationalisation occurs more rapidly, often initiated by a catalysing incident in the retail sector that could significantly change the strategic position of a company and, ultimately, shareholders’ assessment of the business’s worth. An example of a catalysing incident was the entry of Wal-Mart, the American retail giant, into Germany. This move fundamentally altered the status quo as well as the systematic competitive dynamics for Tesco and European retailers (Jonsson & Tolstoy 2014: 68). At the domestic spatial level, stiff competition for establishing regional market presence also existed. This forced retailers to learn from one another, especially in regards to competitive reactions from supply chain and in-store programmes. It is recommended that a large percentage of this experience occurs as the expansion happens and the competitive outlook changes. This on-the-job learning shows that growth at the local geographical level will be slow and repetitive activity (Musso 2014: 42). Experience has compelled Tesco to adapt to the regulatory and deregulatory affiliated spatial forces, but also subtly define rather than react to regulatory structures to gain its preferred spatial results in international markets. A regulatory insight, especially in emerging markets, was the significance of investment in creating and sustaining good political affiliations, while initiating PR campaigns to promote expansion operations in emerging economies among stakeholders. From the late 1990s to date, publicly-listed multinational retailers have been placed under enormous pressure from their stockholders to internationalise (Rothaermel 2013: 19). On the organisational front, research shows that stockholders emphasise that multinational retailers deliver not only rapid sales expansion from their foreign divisions but also considerable cross-border networks and hence higher returns. Interpretively, these networks can only manifest in an industrial or international category suppressor (Certo & Certo 2013: 43). As a result, it is inferred that retailers that use a federal structure mechanism will notice the economic advantages of internationalisation promptly, while the industrially experienced multinationals will require more time to achieve practical cross-border sectors, although such networks will greater in the long-term. Vertical integration risks exist and grave mistakes could weaken Tesco’s confidence and spawn negative press that, consequently, could ultimately negate the strategic legitimacy of growth efforts in other areas. Limited experience and knowledge of situations in foreign markets put Tesco’s human resources under immense pressure (Certo & Certo 2013: 29). This context somehow contrast from the large FMCG (fast moving consumer goods) producers like Procter and Gamble, Nestle, and Unilever, where the corporate principles have matured as functions, or become vital in the long term instead of being fixated on more senior roles domestically because they are international firms with foreign divisions (Musso 2014: 57). Tesco’s foreign division was primarily a tradition of a foundation to a larger presence in the local market. As a result, while the company invested considerable amounts of financial capital in its international activities, its management underappreciated the demands of human resources. Established global retail sources do not stress the significance of the human capital factor in the adoption of a global retail strategy. The current results make a great contribution to the mainstream literature in the sense that they indicate that a global retailing human-financial capital disparity may emerge in the process of retail internationalisation (Musso 2014: 16). This means that for a company like Tesco, the process of attaining the recommended scale and pace of global operations, combined with the motivation to outmatch and outrival its competitors, led to a medium-term over-allocation of the financial capital used and a deficit in the human resources used (Macdonald & Marshall 2013: 41). The instant impact of this disparity was considerable stress on the retailer’s hiring policies. The strategic impact of such underinvestment in the HR component is later investments in takeovers that are accretive to the management, and in which the multinational retailer effectively develops effective management hence reducing the pressure on managers in the local arena. Based on Tesco’s case, there are some important lessons regarding global marketing and issues affiliated with communication. Analysis shows that at both the customer-retailer and investor-retailer level, relationships were usually strained because of disintegrated and inefficient marketing communications initiatives (Ilonen, Wren, Gabrielsson & Salimäki 2011: 419). Intriguingly, there was a noticeable lack of vigilance in managing negative publicity and this inefficient and disintegrated communication adversely affected both customer and investor confidence. The strategic impact of this was that the company’s trustworthiness was compromised and that, consequently, it faced challenges at later phases of the internationalisation process with respect to either pursuing more commitment from investors or approvals from government agencies for new investments and planning requests (Centeno & Cohen 2013: 55). Tesco’s case reveals that consumers can be easily isolated by revisions in pricing, store designs, variety, or fasciae after a post-integration period. During this important period, the multinational retailer may accidentally disenfranchise consumers who could make it more challenging to realise post-integration efficiencies, and even undermine relative sales performances (Centeno & Cohen 2013: 36). Tesco made strategic efforts to minimise the price disparities between markets of imported products to favour the company during the implementation of its retail internationalisation process. In addition, financial services providers and other investors trusted that there were international merits and demerits. Even under pressure from banks and other financial institutions, Tesco made international-scale assumptions that were consistent with the findings of researchers who thought that local experience and know-how could mitigate inefficiencies pertaining to limited scale and any other disadvantages associated with sourcing. In spite of this, it is important to bear in mind that investment bankers could be too positive in gauging the power disparities, while management could underestimate the extent of this activity for purposes of transparency (Dawson & Mukoyama 2013: 48). As a result, in an attempt to verify the reality, it is safe to infer that the default power lies somewhere between these two viewpoints. This leads to a conclusion that scale is just as important at the domestic level as it is on the international level. Tesco’s experience shows that multinational retailers must first accumulate enough knowledge and experience of foreign markets before they can launch operations abroad (Hendry 2013: 27). Multinational retailers like Wal-Mart, which have successfully penetrated markets with challenging conditions, have shown that strategic flexibility, something that Tesco seems to lack in its initial and later internationalisation efforts, is key to successful globalisation plans. Tesco could capitalise financially on its local operations and other global income-generating retail activities while its expenses are still being incurred in new markets without obtaining the desired results (Musso 2014: 23). Recent studies have discovered that stronger domestic and international retailer-retailer collaborations were becoming increasingly vital to Tesco’s plan of operating in diverse markets where logistics and distributions fluctuate significantly between markets (Carpenter, Moore, Alexander & Doherty 2013: 278). The findings show that in the beginning, the producers reshaped and realigned their organisational frameworks in order to facilitate fully their leading brands. The effects of Tesco’s globalisation have fundamentally changed the retailer-supplier relationships in building and undermining relationships, and salvaging and ending relationships in other cases. Conclusion The discussion in Part A has shown how globalisation promotes international trade by examining the various contexts associated with the concept pinpointing the specific attributes of globalisation that have a net positive effect on international trade. In many respects, globalisation has forced businesses and consumers to share more knowledge, experience, and technology and, consequently, improved the ease of doing business in any world region. Tesco’s case has confirmed that retail is more intricate than most individuals and organisations imagine. The difficulties faced by the firm in expanding operations abroad, especially in emerging markets, prove that more investment should be made in the research and development (R&D) component of retail. References Carpenter, J., Moore, M., Alexander, N. & Doherty, A. (2013) Consumer demographics, ethnocentrism, cultural values, and acculturation to the global consumer culture: A retail perspective, Journal of Marketing Management, vol. 29, no. 4, pp. 271-291. doi:10.1080/0267257X.2013.766629. Centeno, M. & Cohen, J. (2013) Global capitalism: a sociological perspective, Cambridge, John Wiley & Sons. Certo, S. & Certo, T. 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