Assignment:
Extra Credit Project
Development of foreign market-entry strategy
1. It is for an extra credit project.
2. You should do it individually.
3. It should not be overlapped with any cases already discussed in class. (You should choose a different firm and a different country.)
4. Main contents: please focus on 0) company overview 1) justification (reasons) of the foreign market entry, 2) target country analysis (with a couple options) 3) specific market entry strategy: specific arenas, entry modes, staging (sequence, timing, speed, and scale), differentiator, and economic logic
5. The length of your paper will be approximately 15 double-spaced pages, excluding executive summary, references, attachments such as figures and tables.
6. It is worth up to 25 points. If your paper is very good, you can normally improve your grades up to a letter grade higher.
7. The due will be on 9th of May by 5:00 pm. Slide a hard copy of your paper under the door of my office (Tower SSB 1009).
In the extra credit project, you will prepare a report, including recommendations, for a company's overall foreign market entry strategy into an emerging or developed market. This analysis should be grounded in accepted theory and methodology, and integrate the readings and cases for the course in the context of the actions of a specific firm. Your analysis should include rigorous recommendations for a program of improvement.
Your guiding question is: "How to successfully enter a foreign market?"
The first part will be a choice of a firm and a selection of a new foreign emerging or developed market you would like to enter. Once you choose an MNE, you should list up a couple target countries as a tentative foreign market which should be a new country to the firm. The second part of your project is analyzing institutions (external environment) and resources/capabilities (internal environment), which includes: (1) Formal institutions of a foreign market targeted (2) Informal institutions of a foreign market (3) Your firm's resources and capabilities which should be transferred to a foreign market to create a competitive advantage. You can summarize these analyses with RAT test and/or CAGE frameworks and then identify key issues and challenges in this foreign market entry. The last component is about developing a foreign market entry strategy in which you should address five primary components of an entry strategy: (1) arenas (2) vehicles: market entry modes (3) differentiators (4) staging: timing, sequence, and speed (5) economic logic. An implementation plan would be followed after a market entry strategy.
The report will be approximately 15 double-spaced pages, and should be fully referenced, excluding executive summary, attachments such as figures and tables.
The quality will be evaluated along content and process dimensions (Refer to Appendix 2). Careful editing is expected. Simply "cut and paste" sections written by different coauthors will result in a very poor grade.
Outside research is expected. Please properly document your sources either in footnotes/endnotes or in (author name, year) format with a reference list attached at the end of your work.
• One inch margins should be left on four sides of the paper, and the font size cannot be smaller than 10 (I am using "times new roman" 10 point now).
• On the title page, your name and email should be required.
• Also on the title page, include a 1-paragraph, single-spaced executive summary (less than 200 words): don't miss it.
• Double-spaced in your main text (references and tables should be single-spaced).