Chapter 3

• ASEAN: Is a trading alliance of 10 Southeast Asian countries

  • includes Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Laos, Thailand, Singapore, Vietnam, Burma, Brunei Darussalam
• North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) went into effect in 1994 and original members were US, Canada, and Mexico
• European Union (EU): Is an economic and political partnership of 27 democratic European countries

  • Primary motivation was to reassert the region’s economic position against the US and Japan. (before this, each euro country had its own border controls, taxes, nationalistic policies, protected industries, etc. which overall, prevented euro companies from developing economic efficiency.)
• Lisbon Treaty (or Reform Treaty): 2007, EU constitutional treaty that gave the EU more power (aimed to give EU a full-time president)
• 3 Global Attitudes:

  1. Ethnocentric Attitude: Is the parochialistic belief that the best work approaches and practices are those of the home country
  2. Polycentric Attitude: Is the view that employees in the host country know the best work approaches and practices for running their business.
  3. Geocentric Attitude: Is a world-oriented view that focuses on using the best approaches and people from around the globe
• Eliminating parochial attitudes and developing an understanding of cross-cultural differences is the type of approach successful managers need in today’s global environment
• • Monolingualism is one sign that a nation suffers from parochialism (viewing the world solely through one’s own eyes and perspectives). 
• • People with a parochial attitude ignore the way of living, values, and customs of others and apply an attitude of “ours is better than theirs”.