Business Principles

For hundreds of years, American businesses led the way in producing new goods and services for sale around the world. Consumers worldwide eagerly purchased exciting new products that were invented and made in the United States. Factories hummed with activity, workers from other countries arrived by the thousands to find jobs, and people spent their wages buying the goods that the firms produced.

Many businesspeople and government leaders from foreign countries also arrived to find out how American businesses were managed.

During the past half-century, however, other countries have become more industrialized and have learned how to invent and produce new products for consumers. Often the products were cheaper than similar products produced in the United States and, over time, many of the products were judged to be of equal or better quality. Americans gradually began to purchase these foreign products.

Foreign companies learned to produce innovative designs for products ranging from cell phones to MP3 players and flat-screen televisions. American business leaders soon realized it was time for change. They had to find ways to use the abundant resources of the United States and the human talent of their managers and employees to meet the challenge of global competition. Global competition is  the ability of businesses from one country to compete with similar businesses in other countries. One of the biggest challenges facing American businesses today is competing in the global economy.



Business note
Learning a foreign language offers an important career advantage. Most companies that compete in the global economy prefer employees who understand other cultures and can communicate comfortably in their
customers’ language. Use the Internet to identify the languages spoken by the most people around the world. If you chose to learn a second language to help you with an international business career, which one would you choose and why?