“Explore the implications of significant differences in culture as well as legal, political and economic environments for multinational enterprises undertaking business in several countries. Use examples to illustrate your answer.”

Type of work: Essay

Topic: “Explore the implications of significant differences in culture as well as legal, political and economic environments for multinational enterprises undertaking business in several countries. Use examples to illustrate your answer.”

Word count: 1500

Structure:

1. Context – (100 words):

• briefly introduce the themes / issues that will be dealt with in your paper
• Do not make any assertions or assumptions in this part. It is merely a general description that allows the reader to locate the general topic of the paper

2. Introduction – (150 words):

• The first sentence of the introduction should be the ARGUMENT and should be along the lines of ‘This paper will argue….’
• Make sure you take a position and present an original argument.
• The remaining part of the introduction should explain how you are going to support you argument.Therefore, you are detailing what will appear in the description and analysis components of the paper.

3. Description – (200 words) – This section sets out the limitations of the essay.

• Provide an historical context for the paper or define key terms, concepts or ideas.

(Example: Concepts such as democracy or globalization can have many different meanings depending on the context.)

• Make sure at some point you have a sentence like ‘For the purpose of this paper….’

4. Analysis – (950 words) – This is the most critical part of the essay.

• In this section you should select between 2 – 4 points of analysis.
• You need to demonstrate how certain theories, issues or empirical evidence apply or not apply to your argument (Globalization, mercantilism, comparative advantage, new trade theory, product life cycle theory)
• The structure of analysis should be as follows:

1. This what it is… (description)
2. This is what it means (significance)
3. This is how to links to my argument (utility)

5. Conclusion – (150w):

• Summarize all the elements of your essay.
• Restate your argument and the points of analysis that you used to support your position.
• Do NOT introduce any new ideas in the conclusion!

This is a basic essay structure. You can adjust the word limits to suit the individual approach and scope of your work

Guidance: You need to consider the undertaking of international business in its full sense and explore investment, production and sales, while not focusing solely on one issue such as marketing or human resource management

• Make sure you identify any key authors who have published on the topic.
• Try to provide sources that support different approaches / analysis of the topic.
• Identify areas of debate / contention within the literature and make sure you acknowledge this at some point in the essay.