South African Breweries bought Miller Brewery
Sony bought Columbia Pictures
Diemler bought Chrysler
Ahold bought six large grocery chains, among them Stop n Shop and Giant Foods (about 1300 individual stores)
The list goes on and on.
Are American firms at the fundamental disadvantage in competing against foreign companys as of our background and experience? From childhood through college, we focus on us, on America. As children in Europe grow up, they gewnerally travel to many other countries on vacation, on field trips, etc. We go to Disney. Foreign students come to US to study. We stay home and attend community college. I have spent about ten years performing international business and every international counterpart I have worked with can speak 3 or 4 languages. I speak one, like most Americans.
"Are American firms at main disadvantage in competing against foreign companys as of our background and experience? " Are we intrinsically isolationist as of our culture, our geography, our overwhelming economic power?