ITALY: A COUNTRY STUDY WITH AN INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS PERSPECTIVE
This research provides a country study of Italy developed from the perspective of international business. The initial discussion provides a marketing and management assessment of business conditions in Italy. This assessment is based on the findings of more detailed examinations of the physical forces, economic and socioeconomic forces, sociocultural forces, and competitive and distributive forces. These examinations are presented following the marketing and management assessment.
Marketing and Management Assessment
Italy's physical forces generally may be expected to enhance the conduct of international business. The absence of fuel self-sufficiency could cause problems for multinational corporations in the event of a producer boycott. Otherwise, no substantial problems for the conduct of international business should derive from physical forces.
Italy's economic and socioeconomic forces may be expected generally to enhance the conduct of international business. Pluses are a stable and well educated population that is ethnically unified for the most part. Italy also has a large and well developed economy with strong and efficient financial markets. The risk for multinational corporations is associated with the volatility of the lira in international currency exchange markets. Substantial skill and effort is required on the part of multinational corporations to avoid translation costs in foreign exchange transactions.
Sociocultural forces in Italy represent a risk for the conduct of international business by multinational corporations. The stability of the far-right coalition government is an unknown quantity. Italy could become more stable through the functioning of the new electoral process, or the country could once again slip into the game of political musical chairs that has been going on for almost 50 years....