• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.5-16
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• 2009

Against the backdrop of the increasing trend towards economic globalisation, many international firms are indicating that decisions on how to enter foreign markets remains one of the key strategic challenges confronting them. Despite the rich body of literature on the topic, the fact that these challenges have continued to dominate global marketing strategy discourses point to someevident lacunae. Accordingly, this paper considers the variables, categorised in terms of firm contexts (standardisation, market research, competition, structure, competitive advantage) and host country-contexts (economic development, cultural differences, regulation and political risk), which influence the degree of involvement of UK companies in overseas markets. Following hypotheses were drawn from literature review: H1: The greater the level of competition, the higher the degree of involvement in the overseas market. H2: The more centralised the firm's organisation structure, the higher the degree of involvement in the overseas market. H3a: The adoption of a low cost-approach to competitive advantage will lead to a higher degree of involvement. H3b: The adoption of an innovation-approach to competitive advantage will lead to a higher degree of involvement. H3c: The adoption of a market research approach to competitive advantages will lead to a higher degree of involvement. H3d: The adoption of a breadth of strategic target-approach to competitive advantage will lead to a lower degree of involvement. H4: The higher the degree of standardisation of the international marketing mix the higher the degree of involvement. H5: The greater the degree of economic development in the host market, the higher the degree of involvement. H6: The greater the cultural differences between home and host countries, the lower the degree of involvement. H7: The greater the difference in regulations between the home country and the host country, the lower the degree of involvement. H8: The higher the political risk in the host country, the lower the degree of involvement. A questionnaire instrument was constructed using, wherever possible, validated measures of the concepts to serve the aims of this study. Following two sets of mailings, 112 usable completed questionnaires were returned. Correlation analysis and multiple regression analysis were used to analyze data. Statistically, the paper suggests that factors relating to the level of competition, competitive advantages and economic development are strong in influencing foreign market involvements. On the other hand, unexpectedly, cultural factors (especially individualism/collectivism and low and high power distance dimensions) proved to have weak moderating effects. The reason for this, in part, is due to the pervading forces of globalisation and the attendant effect on global marketing. This paper has contributed to the general literature in a way that point to two mainimplications. First, with respect to research on national systems, the study may hold out some important lessons especially for developing nations. Most of these nations are known to be actively seeking to understand what it takes to attract foreign direct investment, expand domestic market and move their economies from the margin to the mainstream global economy. Second, it should be realised that competitive conditions remain in constant flux (even in mature industries and mature economies). This implies that a range of home country factors may be as important as host country factors in explaining firms' strategic moves and the degree of foreign market involvement. Further research can consider the impact of the home country environment on foreign market involvement decisions. Such an investigation will potentially provide further perspectives not only on the influence of national origin but also how home country effects are confounded with industry effects.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.662-671
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• 1996

Since the world's economic and political structures have changed, the term 'globlization' has shown up as a dominant power and as a necessity for regional and national development. Each nation is responding to the globalization process economically and politically in various ways. In general, however, the economic response to the globalization is economic restructuring from the Fordist industries to 'flexible specialization'. And the political response to the globalization is 'global localization' as a new type of local politics(i.e., local policy activism or growth-enhancing local development policies). The crisis of Fordism shifted the role of local governments towards more involovement with local economic development. Local governments are mobilizing for loca economic development, they are taken into a process of institutional change that tends to redefine their responsibilities inside the state. Local governments thus tend to act as an entrepreneur in order to restructure theiir local economies and to compete with other national and international regions. State restructuring towards enerepreneurialism and efficient regional policy pursuing a pro-growth coalition trategy is chosen as a new mode of regulation for the post-Fordism at the local level. The flexible specialization as the post-Fordist economy and the local government as an entrepreneur are the global choice for globalization and a post-Fordist society. The paper focuses on the regulation theory which comprises the political economic perspective on resturcturing. Economic restructuring and state restructuring will be discussed in detail. And the paper tries to combine the economic globalization and the global localization as economic and political responses to globalization.

• Journal of Energy Engineering
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.68-78
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• 2020

According to the new climate change agreement, technology development to reduce greenhouse gases is actively conducted worldwide, and research on energy efficiency improvement in the field of power generation and transmission and distribution is underway [1,2]. Economic analysis of the operation method of storing and supplying surplus electricity using energy storage devices, and using energy storage devices as a frequency adjustment reserve power in regional cogeneration plants has been reported as the most profitable operation method [3-7]. Therefore, this study conducted an economic analysis for the installation of energy storage devices in the combined heat and power plant in the Czech Republic. The most important factor in evaluating the economics of battery energy storage devices is the lifespan, and the warranty life is generally 10 to 15 years, based on charging and discharging once a day. For the simulation, the ratio of battery and PCS was designed as 1: 1 and 1: 2. In general, the primary frequency control is designed as 1: 4, but considering the characteristics of the cogeneration plant, it is set at a ratio of up to 1: 2, and the capacity is simulated at 1MW to 10MW and 2MWh to 20MWh according to each ratio. Therefore, life was evaluated based on the number of cycles per year. In the case of installing a battery energy storage system in a combined heat and power plant in the Czech Republic, the payback period of 3MW / 3MWh is more favorable than 5MW / 5MWh, considering the local infrastructure and power market. It is estimated to be about 3 years or 5 years from the simple payback period considering the estimated purchase price without subsidies. If you lower the purchase price by 50%, the purchase cost is an important part of the cost for the entire lifetime, so the payback period is about half as short. It can be, but it is impossible to secure profitability through the economy at the scale of 3MWh and 5MWh. If the price of the electricity market falls by 50%, the payback period will be three years longer in P1 mode and two years longer in P2 and P3 modes.