• Your critical analysis and insights on how the strategic decision of Starbucks to enter the host country, the Republic of South Zetland (SZ), via foreign direct investment (FDI)-greenfield investment will enable the firm to influence or shape the local formal and informal institutional environment. Draw on institutional and industry-based considerations of firm strategy in your analysis.
• Your recommendations on how Starbucks can leverage the strategy of FDI-greenfield investment to its advantage to address its liability of foreignness as it enters a foreign market in SZ. Draw on the global mindset topic that we have covered in this unit.

The Scenario: Institutional theory suggests that while institutions can influence a firms strategic decisions and actions, the entry and strategic behavior of a firm, such as a well-resourced multinational company (MNC), into an emerging economy can shape and influence the host country's institutional environment.

Drawing on the topics that we have covered in this unit, including your knowledge of Starbucks, the firm that we used as a demo case in this unit, write and present a brief report addressed to the top management of Starbucks as it plans to venture into a new market in a hypothetical, newly formed country, classified as an emerging economy Republic of South Zetland (SZ). The top management of Starbucks is requesting your strategic insights and recommendation on the critical considerations that the firm needs to address as it ventures into a new, international market given its unique institutional environment.

Starbucks will be the first MNC to do business in SZ since SZ declared independence from a larger Asian country in 2005. SZ is an agricultural-based economy and a top producer of premium quality coffee beans globally (accounting for 5% of the total world coffee production in 2021).

You can assume that:

1. Starbucks has been planning to gain more control or bargaining power over the supply chain of relevant raw materials essential to its global business operations.
2. SZ is a fast-growing emerging economy dubbed by Time Magazine in 2021 as the next golden hub of agricultural and food production business opportunities in modern Asia.
3. The World Bank noted that SZ, a new democratic country, is a highly adaptable country that is committed to undertaking radical social, political, and economic reforms to align itself with the leading economies in the world and actively engage with and participate in world socio-economic affairs.
4. SZ is predicted to become one of the top countries in Asia in terms of ease of doing business in the next five years, according to the World Bank Ease of Doing Business Report (a global country ranking report that we discussed in class).