International Business Chapter 12

The way firms make the choices about acquiring and using scarce resources in order to achieve their international objectives

The ability of a company to have higher rates of profits than its competitors

skills or abilities required in order to adequately complete a task

the process by which an organization determines where it is going in the future, how it will get there, and how it will assess whether and to what extent it has achieved its goals

an assessment conducted on the chain of interlinked activities of an organization or set of interconnected organizations, intended to determine where and to what extent value is added to the final product or service

the practices that organizations and their managers use for the identification, creation acquisition, development, dispersion, and exploitation of competitively valuable knowledge

knowledge that an individual has but that is difficult to express clearly in words, pictures, or formulae, and therefore difficult to transmit to others

knowledge that is easy to communicate to otehrs via words, pictures, formulae, or other means

a broad statement that defines the organization's purpose and scope

a description of the company's desired future position if it can acquire the necessary competencies and successfully implement its strategy

a clear and concise description of the fundamental values, beliefs, and priorities of the company's members

action plans to enable organizations to reach their objectives

multiple, plausible stories about the future

plans for the best or worst case scenarios or for critical events that could have a severe impact on the firm

a prediction of future sales performance

an itemized projection of revenues and expenses for a future time period

broad guidelines intended to assist lower level personnel in handling recurring issues or problems

specified ways of performing a particular task or activity

planning process that bigins at the highest level in the organization and continues downward

planning process that begins at the lowest level in the organization and continues upward

repition of the bottom up or top down planning process until all differences are reconciled

act of spying on a competitor to learn secrets about its strategy and operations

process in which principal competitors are identified and their objectives, strengths, weaknesses, and product lines are assessed

procedure for gathering, analyzing, and disseminating information about a firm's competitors

a technique for measuring a firm's performance against the performance of others that may be in the same or a completely different industry