1. How might the influences of culture work against a globalized marketplace? 

2. What might account for the tendency of international trade to have remained largely within the triad nations? What might cause this to change in the future?

The focus of this Worldview explores “Regional Strategies for Competing Globally.” Although some researchers have argued that a “borderless” world is emerging from recent advances in telecommunications and computer technology, declining transportation costs, and economic liberalization policies, most large multinationals continue to generate the majority of their revenues within a single region. This suggests that, for most companies and industries, the world marketplace is regional rather than global in nature. This provides a good foundation for discussion, using such questions as, “Is the world truly evolving to a global market, and therefore regional or semi-globalization strategies are merely a stage in the evolution of international companies? Or is there a “threshold of internationalization” beyond which a multinational’s performance declines, not merely short term but well into the future?,” and “Even if the world is moving toward a greater degree of globalization of markets and competition, might there still be value associated with a conceptual view of international strategy in the context of region-by-region analysis rather than nation-by-nation or on a global basis?” While such questions are very broad and “big picture” in their nature, and thus represent a conceptual stretch for many students, discussing these issues in class can yield a vibrant and insightful discussion. The instructor may wish to use a debate to argue for and against the viability of a “regional strategy” perspective as a long-term approach, for example. Alternatively, the instructor may wish to have an exercise intended to incorporate scenario analysis techniques to identify the variables that may influence, for example, whether and to what extent regional versus global perspectives may predominate in discussion and relevance during coming years.