Political Analysis for Business: International Relations

International business research has identified the ‘liability of foreignness’ as a major obstacle to success abroad, both for firms and executives. This technical note explains how to use business systems analysis to reduce the liability of foreignness. It lays out the logic and outlines adaptation strategies for overcoming it. It also provides a set of questions to put the framework to use.

This technical note provides the basis for political analysis. In particular, it presents politics as a key process for changing institutions, and thus the rules of the game for business, and it lays out how politics can be analyzed in terms of actors, interests and power.

Financial statements are used by a wide variety of groups as a first step in evaluating a firm's management and understanding a company's business activities. This note explains that absolute figures by themselves tell us little about whether a company is successful or how it has managed its assets and liabilities.