Trend in International Business Environment - Myassignmenthelp.Com

Question: Discuss about the Trend in International Business Environment. Answer: Introduction The economic framework in the global framework, over the years, has experienced significant dynamics and modifications in the last few decades, which in turn can be attributed to the economic and global phenomena occurring in different corners of the world. The global economic environment, over the past decades has become more integrated and inclusive owing to economic phenomena like Globalization, Liberalization of economic environment of the major countries and increasing scopes of setting up commercial and political relations among the different countries across the world. This immense dynamics in the global economy have direct implications on the business and commercial environment across the world, which has also been subjected to immense modifications relating to the changing patterns of operations of businesses in different parts of the world. Over the years, the main incentive of doing business, globally, has remained the same, that is of acquiring maximum profit and economic prospects as well long term sustainability in their operations. However, the mode of operations in the business organizations and the work culture have significantly changes over the years, catering to the needs of the situations and facilitated by the inventions and development of technologies and provisions which makes the process of doing business easy, convenient, cost saving and time effective. The changes in the work culture and global business environment includes multi-dimensional domains like the way in which the employees interact, the communications among different participants in the businesses, production methods, management of businesses and others to name a few. With a more integrated international commercial environment and with increasing number of businesses going global, these changes have become inevitable and have been facilitate d by facilities like internet, which makes communication across the world extremely easy. Taking this aspect into consideration, many business organizations are undergoing radical changes in their workplace arrangements, which includes introduction of new practices like that of hot-desking, stand-up and corridor meetings, home offices and others to make their operations more dynamic and cost and time effective. The concerned report tries to discuss these new methods taken by the business organizations in the contemporary periods, in details. The report also emphasizes on analyzing the need for introduction of the same, the motivation behind the same and tries to analyze whether the companies, implementing such methods are getting added advantages and desired benefits over those who still stick to the conventional methods of doing business. For the purpose of doing the same the report tries to conduct an extensive review of the literatures and scholarly works which are present regarding aspects, thereby comparing and discussing the learned opinions prevailing across the wo rld regarding this aspect, taking into account the empirical evidences and examples relevant to the same. Dynamics in the Global Business Environment To understand the evolution and implementation of radical changes in the workplace operations by the different enterprises across the world, it is of immense importance to understand the trends prevailing in the global business environment and the evolution of the same over the years. There exists different opinions regarding the concept of the global business environment of which the one put forward by Wild, Wild and Han (2014), seems to be robust and inclusive. The authors define the concept of the international business environment as the open forum in which the commercial transactions (both public and private) takes places between the relevant organizations of different countries. Over the years, with the integration of the leading economies of the world, attributed to phenomena like Globalizations, Liberalizations, Free Trade Agreements and inter-country migration and usage of labor and other resources of production, there has been a significant increase in the number of enterpr ises and countries actively operating under the domain of international business environment. There are several contributing factors, according to the literary evidences to the expansion of operations in the global business environment, with more and more companies going global. The primary ones, as found to be asserted by different scholarly opinions are discussed in the following sections. Reasons behind the increase in operations of enterprises in international business Casson (2013) in his working paper briefly discussing about the evolution of the global business environment, elaborates about the primary reasons behind the continuously expanding domain of international business and inclusion of more organizations as participants in the same. The primary ones put forward by the author are as follows: Increasing innovations and progress in technological aspects, which facilitates in integrating the global economy and making overseas operations of businesses convenient and time saving Increase in easy transport globally and the fall in the cost of overseas travel has also facilitated commercial enterprises to increase their domain of operations in countries other than their home country With communication getting easier, mainly due to the invention and increased usage of internet, it becomes easier for the organizations to connect instantly with any corner of the world, which in turn helps them in controlling their business operations in different countries from a remote place of operations The views of Casson are strongly supported by many other authors including Verbeke (2013), who adds to the arguments by adding the aspects of change in consumption and life style patterns of people across the world. This in turn has changed the global consumption patterns massively, thereby making the business environment more inclusive as well as competitive. Given this situation and the ease of doing international business, more companies are expanding their domain of operations globally The arguments put forward by the authors in the above section, emphasizes on the fact that over the years the operational framework of the business organizations have changed massively, with most of them going global and venturing in more than one domain of operations, thereby making their production and supply of products and services multi-dimensional. This in turn, as argued by Putnam and Mumby (2013), indicates towards the need for change and improvisations in the modes of operations within these business enterprises, which also includes the workplace arrangements, such that the resources present with the companies can be optimally used and the production can be maximized. Changes in the workplace arrangements with time There are many opinions regarding the fact that over the years the commercial organizations have been modifying their workplace arrangements significantly and incorporating new means in doing the same, the changes being radical in many instances. Christensen and Schneider (2015), have argued in this aspect asserting that over the years the usual commercial workplaces have undergone considerable changes in the pattern of operating with the inclusion of new ways of working by the employees in these organizations. However, the authors have not elaborated on the measures and new age working methods which are being adopted by these organizations in this aspect and have only discussed about the evolution of business workplaces across the world over time. Coenen and Kok (2014), augments the arguments put forward by the former authors, regarding the evolution of commercial workplaces with time and the new arrangement adopted by them in the global scenario. According to the authors, to cater to the changes in the demand as well as supply patterns, the operations and production activities of the companies have been experiencing significant changes, which includes radical workplaces changes like implementation of work from home, hot-desking, corridor and stand-up meetings, space sharing, flexible work shifts and others. These new age workplace arrangements, as opined by different scholars, are put forward in the following sections. New Workplace Arrangements Over the last few decades, the conventional concept of workplace, that is of several people sitting in a room, at same place and working for a fixed duration daily, doing several pre-assigned jobs, has changed considerably. The businesses going global and multi-dimensional, the organizations are venturing in many industries and domain of operations, which in turn have led them to relax the conventional working norms and work cultures and implement flexibilities in the same to utilize the resources present with them as far as possible and find new channels to reap profits by finding new ways of utilizing their full capacities. The new changes, often implemented in the workplace arrangements are as follows: Work From Home One of the current workplace arrangement changes which are increasingly taken into account by the business organizations across the world, in many industries, is the practice of home office or working from home. Bloom (2014), elaborately discusses the concept of working from home as the method of operations, especially adopted by the different commercial organizations across different parts of the world, where the employees of the company can perform their professional activities without being present at the work location during the normal business timings. This implies that an employee can work independently from home, without staying electronically connected to the team or the employer, during the business hours. Motivations behind implementation of working from home Bridgman (2016), discusses the expected benefits of the implementation of working from home in the contemporary commercial scenario, which motivates the organizations to implement the same. These motivating reasons according to the author are as follows: The first benefit of introducing the practice of working from home, as per the assertions of the author, is that it is expected to increase the productivity of the employees by saving time and effort to travel to the workplace, this being especially true for those employees who stay far from their offices. Another argument in favor of the same is that this practice helps the employers to cut the overhead costs of making provisions for the employees within the office to a considerable level, thereby increasing the cost effectiveness in their production operations. Kruse (2018), puts forward another motivating factor behind the incorporation of work from home practices in the current business scenario across the world, which is the aspect of less distraction, less stressed environment and working in the quieter atmosphere, which is expected to increase the productivity of the employees, thereby benefitting the employers in the long run, in terms of profitability. Another crucial aspect of the need for implementing the working from home practices in the commercial domain, as put forward by Klein and Myrdal (2013), is that from the perspective of female workers. As has been rightly put forward by the authors and supported by many other scholarly evidences including that of Slaughter (2015), the work force participation of women have increased significantly over the years, with increasing scopes of education and skill development of women. However, in spite of their increasing participation in different commercial arena, across the world, the women workforce still faces the problem of trading off between their work and household responsibilities, especially after their marriage and child birth. According to the authors, this leads to immense lay-offs and resignation of the female employees in many organizations, thereby affecting the welfare of the employees as well as the profitability of the enterprises negatively. However, with the implementation of work from home practices, the authors argue that this problem can be combated to a considerable extent, as the female employees will no longer have to trade off between work and child rearing and can maintain a perfect work life balance. This may also help the male employees in the same aspects. This in turn can help the business organizations in terms of retaining their precious resources and increase in the overall productivity and cost effectiveness. Problems in working from home Thus, it can be seen that there exists significant positive arguments in favor of the implementation of the practice of working from home in the businesses in the contemporary periods. There are, however, several arguments put forward by scholars, against the concept of work from home. Sturges (2012), argues that often with the implementation of working from home practices, the productivity of employees decrease as they tend to pay less attention to work and there rises sincerity issues. The author also argues that there exists many industries and job roles where there remains no scope of implementing work from home option, thereby making the scope of implantation of the same restricted. His views are also supported by Clapperton (2018), who suggests that among the problems of working from home, the trust issues of the employers is not the primary issue. The main issues according to the author, are the problem of over-working of the employees, lack of colleague support, feeling of is olation and also the absence of proper infrastructure in the residences, the last problem being even more acute in the low developed countries. Case Study Bloom et al. (2014), conducted an experiment on the reputed Chinese travel company, CTrip, with 16,000 employees, where the call center support staffs who opted for work from home option showed a 13% increase in their performance. This led the company to roll out the same for all the employees, where the increase in the productivity of the company was as high as 22%, much due to the work satisfaction and convenience of the employees. Hot-Desking Another important change in the conventional arrangements in the workplaces, which have been increasingly adopted by the business organizations across the world, is the practice of hot-desking in the business organizations. According to Gilson et al. (2012), the term Hot-Desking, being a new concept in work-place arrangement, refers to the system, where more than one worker can work from one desk or work station, thereby having no fixed sitting arrangements and dynamic access to resources as per requirement of the workers. Given the dynamics which the business organizations face in the contemporary global scenario, there are several motivations, on part of the companies, which have been asserted by many scholars over time. Motivation behind implementing hot-desking in business enterprises Felstead (2012), in his elaborate research on the aspects of changing workplace dynamics in the current economic situations, emphasizing especially on the business enterprises operating in the United Kingdom, puts forward the motivations prevailing in the aspect of hot-desking, which are as follows: As per the author, hot-desking allows different employees to access the same working desk in an office, at different times, which reduces the cost of the companies significantly as they do not need to create a work station for each employee. This is especially beneficial in the ever integrating global business environment. The author argues that, with more businesses going global, the need for multi-shift working among the business organizations are increasing, which in turn, required the same to employ workers in different shifts to cater to their multi-national clientele. Hot-desking comes as an efficient workplace arrangement for such situations, as the same increases the productivity of each resource and decreases the cost of operations of the business organizations. Another argument, put forward in favor of the practice, by Strobbe et al. (2012), is that working in different work stations on different days, help the employees to work in the neighborhood of different people in the same office, which in turn helps in better communication, inflow of knowledge from different sections and expansion of the domain of expertise of the employees. This in turn, expectedly contributes positively in the long run productivity of the concerned companies. Brink, Van Meel and Nielsen (2014) augment the previous assertions by arguing that hot-desking not only encourages employees to reduce cumbersome clutters, but also make them feel more free to use the resources present in the office. Under this practice, each employee can use the infrastructures present in the office more efficiently, thereby making the production more cost effective. Problems in hot-desking Not all scholars agree to the positive implications of hot-desking in the business organizations. Baldry and Barnes (2012), argue in their elaborate and empirically supported research findings that there are several impacts of hot-desking, which contributes negatively in the productivity of the employees, thereby having negative implications for the companies in the long run. As per the authors, hot-desking often gives rise to a state of unorganized and inadequate accommodation for the employees, especially when employees are more in number. This forces the employees to waste time in finding a work station for themselves, thereby decreasing their productivity and the profitability of the organizations. The practice, according to the authors, also creates the problem of lack of focusing capabilities among the employees as they need to get accustomed to a new work desk and neighborhood every day (Den Dulk et al. 2013). Case Study The findings of Bull and Brown (2012), suggest that there are mixed implications of hot-desking in the contemporary commercial organizations. While there are evidences of positive implications of the same in the big Silicon Valley based companies like Amazon, Google and others, the evidences provided by Coenen and Kok (2014), show that many people in general do not support the idea as it detaches them from their team, thereby increasing their stress levels as they do not get their familiar peers and their support. Stand-Up or Corridor Meeting Susman (2018), in his article, discussed about another radical change which the workplaces are often implementing in their work culture, which is commonly known as stand-up meeting or corridor meeting. The practice involves the work related discussions and meetings among the attendees, but not in the conventional set-up, but while standing. Motivations to implement Stand-up Meeting According to the author the main benefits of stand-up meeting, which motivates the companies to take this method are as follows: The meetings are usually short and compact as they are done while standing, which creates discomfort if dragged for a long time. The meetings being short-spanned can be done in an informal way, on a regular basis, among teams, which in turn may help in understanding the progress of the same and may also help in creating more channels of communication among the employees. Problems in Corridor or Stand-Up Meetings However, there may also be several problems in conducting the meeting in this way. Brunelle, (2012), argues that this arrangement, due to the short span of meeting, only works when all the participants of the same are focused and clear about their objective of the meeting. Otherwise this may actually be a waste of time. Conclusion Apart from the above discussed changes in the arrangements, there have also been introduction of new work methods like that of virtual meetings, webinars and others, which is highly facilitated by the new age technologies and usage of internets. As the evidences shown above suggests, the implications of the same are mixed. While most of the companies, implementing these methods are benefitted in terms of cost effectiveness, time saving and team integration, there have also been evidences of negative effects of the same in some cases, in terms of inconvenience of some employees and management, which actually added to the loss of their productivity. 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