1. What you need to know

The international business environment is one of globalization, with countries, or rather companies, exchanging goods and services and setting up operations in countries other than the parent company's country of origin.

Globalization became a reality with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the USSR. But globalization has not eliminated economic, cultural and legal divisions. The former refer to the North-South or rich countries/poor countries divide, although the rise of emerging countries (including China) is forcing us to reconsider this division. The second relates to culture, and is real, even if it cannot be reduced to the confrontation thesis set out by Samuel Huntington in The Clash of Civilizations, especially as the author neglects both cases of non-conflictual coexistence and internal conflicts within religious groups or sub-groups....