Lecture Matthew Martin

The document is a lecture at Chestnut Hill business school. Matthew Martin is a guest speaker who gives some tips

to students majoring in international business who will be doing a training period in a foreign country. The presentation

is in three parts.

In Part I, the speaker introduces himself, his company, his career, the changing working environment, and points out

a few of the advantages and inconveniences of his job.

Mr Martin is the vice president of a consulting fi rm, and for over twenty years, in addition to his work in the United

States, has done business either at a distance or in the fi eld in Europe, Africa and Asia. He emphasizes the evolution

of business practices abroad that he has witnessed in recent years and also the changes spurred by the world market

along with the expansion of free trade and the technological revolution.

Nowadays, business can be done all over the globe and much faster thanks to computers, the internet and cell

phones. Tele-working with colleagues from other countries is sometimes problematic on account of technological issues

but also because of diffi cult foreign accents, high rates of turnover of personnel and time differences.

In the second part of his lecture, Matthew Martin describes the international model of business management and

governance that is adopted by successful multinationals but warns students that most small and medium-sized companies

are still managed according to local corporate cultures.

On the one hand, there has been a standardization of practices among the high-performing multinationals. This has

been inspired mostly by American and Japanese corporate culture management styles. This model resembles that

of a multinational where the best practices of different corporate management styles prevail over national cultures.

Shared values and practices include quality, transparency, encouraging risk taking, high performance and, above all,

taking into consideration consumer insight and customer satisfaction.

On the other hand, the average company is often very local and traditional in its management style.

...