1. (a) Select an industry with which you are somewhat familiar [e.g., kitchen appliance manufacturing, personal care products, or after-market automobile parts]. (b) Identify three countries with which companies in your nation might establish a partnership or subsidiary. (c) Assume your locally-based corporation has entered into joint ventures [shared equity and management partnership] in two of those countries, and has a wholly-owned subsidiary [i.e., no partner] operating in the third [your choice]. In both types of business relationships your company has employed a combination of expatriate [i.e., parent-country employees who have been employed in your local operations] as well as host country nationals [HCNs], and employees from at least one other third country [TCNs].
2. Identify basic trends in the following aspects of the business environment which might affect your business over the next two or three years while engaged in a partnership [international joint venture] or with a wholly-owned subsidiary doing business in the group of countries you are assigned. Cite your sources.
• Economic
• Social-Cultural
• Political-Legal
• Technological
• Market
3. From your analysis, determine potential implications for HRM policies and practices.