Individual Country Report 3000-words (35%)
1) For each country, and with your product/service in mind you will need to investigate relevant business environmental factors that may include the following (read Appendix 1 to see what to include under each factor – but please use your judgement, you could include other factors, or not consider some in the list):
a. Economic factors
b. Political factors
c. Legal issues
d. The trade and investment environment
e. Foreign exchange issues
f. Financial factors
g. Cultural factors and challenges that it might pose
2) Once you consider the key factors, you will need to make a recommendation based on your findings as to whether the country is an attractive place to internationalise the product/service under consideration. You also need to discuss how you arrive at this conclusion.
3) So, what makes a good quality assignment:
a. It’s based on good quality research and your ability to present a vast amount of information succinctly and in a convincing way.
b. You have good quality sources of information (business information sources such as government reports, World Bank, International Trade Organisation, EIU, Datamonitor etc, business databases such as Proquest, Business Source
Premier, academic journal articles, textbooks, please don’t use Wikipedia or dubious references, or no name references from strange websites).
c. How well you use these resources support to your arguments. In particular, the quality and reliability of your statistical data to support your arguments are very important.
d. Your information is realistic, relevant, and would be useful for a company/person conducting international business.
e. The information is specific to the product/service chosen.
f. You have adequately referenced, and you have used the Harvard referencing system to acknowledge your sources of information (both in-text and as a reference list at the end).
g. Your final report doesn’t exceed 3000 words in total (but this can exclude – title page, references, within text tables and appendices).
h. It should be in a report format. Your report should be typed, double spaced, 12-point font, and has headings (further information on report format is provided below).
i. You have time series data where relevant, which demonstrates trends over the last 5-10 years or so, and if possible a forecast into the future.
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Your individual country report (3000 words) must follow the following format:
1. Title page – succinct title not exceeding 15 words; Name and student ID.
2. Executive summary- 1 page (no less no more): The executive summary must address:
a. What is the project about and why is it important?
b. What is the main question being addressed in the report
c. How did you go about addressing this question / your investigation?
d. What did you find – you should focus on the main findings?
3. Introduction: (300 words approx)
a. This is where you introduce the topic to the reader by framing your paper and articulating the what, why, and how of the paper. What is it that you are researching? why is this important? and how are you going to go about your investigation and research?
b. In this section you need to briefly introduce the product/service and explain why you are considering your specific country for internationalizing this product /service. You need to draw your information from credible sources for the country and product.
c. In this section you also need to spell out the aim of the project and come up with a statement of the research question. What is the research question for which you are trying to find answer(s)? One or two research questions are ok.
4. Research, Data analysis and Results (2400 wds approx)
a. You will need to undertake original research; collect data on various indicators of the factors that you have identified as being critical for your country and product/service for say, the last 5 years. Your literature and readings will inform you on the relevant data and where you can get these from. In this section you need to describe your data carefully, how it is analysed and what you found. This is a substantial task. Data sources include secondary statistics from a number of credible sources including the websites of governments, industry bodies and international organisations such as World Trade Organisation (WTO), World Bank, World Economic Forum (WEF), International Monetary Fund (IMF), United Nations, World Governance Indicators and so on. DFAT, country, EIU Economic Intelligence Unit, KPMG, EY, Deloitte prepare country reports.
b. You are required to analyse recent trends and developments from your data and draw conclusions as to whether the different factors constitute a threat for
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your product/service. For example, you might find that corruption is bad in your country, but recent trends indicate a major improvement, or that regulations on trade have deteriorated in recent years.
5. Discussion/Conclusion: (300 wds approx)
In this section you summarise your main findings from your analysis and discuss the implications of your main findings of your research. Do you recommend entry into this market or not?
6. References: about 20 references
7. Tables and Figures: tables and figures can be included only if they add value to your report.
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Appendix 1 – Country Factors you could use to base Assignment 1 on:
Economic factors
Economic policy of the Government
GDP & GDP Growth (Trend)
Per capita income (Trend)
CPI (Trend)
Inflation (Trend)
Unemployment (Trend)
Infrastructure
Political Factors
Type of Government
Government structure and how it operates
International relations with other countries
Political risk associated with the country
Level of corruption
Legal Factors
Legal system and how it works
Government rules and regulations for establishing a foreign business
Ownership of business, land and office
Labour/employment law
Trade and Investment (FDI) environment
Tariffs – relevant (if any)
Current Account (Trend)
Trading partners and key imports and exports
Trade agreements
History of FDI in the country
Inflow /outflow amounts/where it comes from
Industry access for the Company
Government rules and regulations concerning FDI
Government incentives or any special economic zones
Foreign Exchange Issues
Type of Exchange Rate System
Currency (trend data)
Finance
Banking system and types of banks there
Access to finance (refers to Foreign Company’s access to finance in country) Interest Rates
Repatriation of profit regulations
Taxation rules
Culture
Key values/traditions
How business is done in the country
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Hofstede’s dimensions on the country in comparison to Australia Holidays
Language and communication styles
Religion