Chapter 5 Global Business Today

How effectively do Canadian businesses and government engage together to promote a shared vision and agenda in the global business environment? Do Canadians strike an effective balance between private sector pursuit of global business and public sector support and enablement?

Dave gives “The Theory of Comparative Advantage” a different name and calls it “The Roundabout Way to Wealth”.(p.10) He says that this theory deals with the idea that even a nation which is relatively poor at doing everything, still do some things relatively well. “And a nation that is really good at many things should still specialize in producing some items and import the rest”.(p.10) Time is the ultimate scarce resource. Investing time in doing something means having less time in doing

Define the concept of comparative advantage. How can a country gain or lose its comparative advantage in the production of a good?

Not only is the American worker affected by globalization, but the countries where corporations are moving to, are naive about “the corporate greed.” This corporate greed needs to be under better control. Corporations strategically move production to countries with poverty or low-income wages in order to take advantage of the cheap labor and materials. These unsuspecting countries and workers have no idea as to the benefits and wages the corporations can produce and /or the hardships they can cause. This is

Free trade between countries is integral for strengthening prosperity through international coalition, allowing domestic companies to directly invest in international businesses. This allows these international businesses to produce goods at lower costs which, in turn, can be exported for lower costs. This ultimately benefits both parties in the deal. Outside of production, companies can also export technological service departments. It is argued that by doing this, jobs are outsourced and taken away from domestic citizenship. However, it is important to remember that through

It is evident that the economy of the United States is changing. The world in which we used to see an economy of all American made products and American services is rapidly disappearing. Many American companies are outsourcing the jobs they have to offer to other countries. These are the very jobs that helped create our economy and help us thrive. James Moreland states “The capitalist market in the United States makes it nearly impossible for any successful company to avoid the lure of cutting American industrial jobs and shipping the work abroad. “Free trade” agreements such as NAFTA and our membership in the WTO have caused the U.S. to be forced to compete with third world countries such as China and Mexico, where wages are often less than $4 an hour.” (Moreland 2014) in his article “The Outsourcing of American Jobs Hurts The Economy on Every Level”. However, with

Comparative advantage states that the division of labor should operate freely, without outside interference, because some countries, people, states, etc., have special advantages over the others, that allows them to produce certain goods more

Which is cost difference determines the patterns of international trade. Absolute advantage is trade benefits when each country is at least cost producer of one of the goods being traded. In the 1800s, David Ricardo developed the theory of comparative advantage to measure gains from trades. This theory is based on comparative advantage and it states each nation should specialize in production of those goods for which its relatively more efficient with a lower opportunity cost.

The opponents of "outsourcing" white-collar jobs eagerly present it as an unprecedented, catastrophic phenomenon. The facts belie this. Economists estimate that roughly 100,000 white-collar jobs "move" offshore annually. This figure excludes new jobs created in the United States because of the increased economic efficiency and is in the context of a U.S. economy

1. To qualify as a multinational corporation, a firm must meet all of the following criteria except:

The country can maximize their wealth by putting the resources in the most competitive industries. Government created comparative advantage rather than free trade because now easier moves the production processes and the machines into countries that can produce more goods (Yeager & Tuereck, 1984). However, many countries now move to new trade theory suggests the ability firms to limit the number of competitors associated with economic scale (reduction of costs with a large scale of output) (Krugman, 1992). The comparative advantage occurs when two-way trade in identical products, it will useful where economic scale is important, but it will create problem with this model. As a result, government must intervene in international trade for protection to domestic firms (Krugman, 1990)

The theory of comparative advantage explains the benefit of free trade. According to this theory by David Ricardo in the early 19th century, “Both countries will be better off if each specializes in the industry where it has a comparative advantage, and if the two trade with one another.” (Citation) International trade opens up markets to foreign supplier, and domestic companies need to improve their efficiency, boost productivity, and lower cost to increase competitiveness instead of enjoying monopolies or oligopolies that enabled them to keep prices well above marginal costs. On the other hand, international trade also offers domestic companies bigger demands and broader markets; therefore more jobs relevant to export have been created. Furthermore, jobs in the US supported by goods exports pay 13-18 percent more than the US national average (ustr.gov).

In the article “The Competitive Advantage of Nations” Michael Porter describes a diamond shaped relationship of forces that define a country’s potential for being competitive in a specified industry. The four points on the diamond representing the different forces are: factor conditions; demand conditions; firm strategy, structure and rivalry; and related and supporting industries. According to Porter, the four points apply pressure to each other resulting in a national

In a global environment, the strategies that managers pursue have a significant effect on a business performance as compared to the competitors. Hill and Jones define strategy as a set of actions that a company’s managers put in place in order to increase performance of the company (2013). When the strategies lead to a superior performance of a company relative to its competitors, then the company is said to be at a competitive advantage. This is a case study of Federal Express, in the small package express delivery industry. It

The principle of comparative advantage provides a simplified theory explaining why free trade is possible, even when one country has an economic disadvantage. Both the Ricardian and Heckscher-Ohlin theories rely on fixed economic assumptions of constant return and perfect competition. However, intuitively the basic principle of business is to increase returns through innovation, improving processes and technology or increasing economies of scale. Organizations understand they control pricing and are price setters, rather than price takers as suggested by perfect competition (Krugman & Obstfeld, 2003). The idea of increasing returns and imperfect competition challenge the foundations of comparative advantage.