GoAbroad! Foreign Market Entry Strategies

Intellectual Property vs Freedom of Knowledge?

jhegland — Tue, 01 May 2007 22:47:48 +0000

Economics was founded on the idea of incentives for everyone that leads to the collective good. Which is why intellectual property protection, in its current form, is so detrimental to the global economy. As IP protection grows in scope (and bias towards large corporations in the developed world), incentives are shifting from the collective to the individual. This can most notably be seen in the AIDS pandemic in Africa where the sick are forced to go without treatment because name-brand drugs are priced beyond their reach and generic drug companies are prevented from manufacturing affordable medicine by 50 year patents.

In a more tangible way, IP protection acts as an entry barrier to small businesses who are afraid to compete in a market dominated by big corporations protected by wide-cast nets of IP regulation. Fewer software startups are emerging, in part because of the fear that large players such as Microsoft will sick a 20 man bench of intellectual property attorneys on the fledgling company.

IP regulation work against market efficiencies by preventing spurred innovation through shared knowledge. As participants of a global economy, it’s important for us to demand IP protection reforms, narrowing their scope and shifting the protection from the already-dominant to the fledgling innovators. I believe it is possible to have intellectual property protection that fosters innovation, but significant changes need to be made to current policies in order to reach this goal.

To quote Thomas Jefferson:

“He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his candle at mine, receives light without darkening me.”

What’s in a name? It’s all semantics anyways…

jhegland — Tue, 01 May 2007 01:52:56 +0000

Last month I co-presented my recent research study on international entry mode strategies, a long-studied and oft-debated topic, at the Midwest chapter of the Academy of International Business conference. While talking to experts far more knowledgeable than myself, it came up that the industry’s previous name for internationalization strategies – “Market Entry Mode Strategies” is being tossed by the wayside for a newer, sexier name. From now on matters of global expansion are referred to as “Participation Strategies” within the academic community.

At first, I thought the change was a bit silly, just another business world buzz word (my favorite remains “delayering”, i.e. “rightsizing”, a.k.a. “downsizing”, in other words “getting axed.”) But “participation strategies” is starting to grow on me because it addresses an important point -it doesn’t do a company any good to be able to setup shop in a foreign country, only to find themselves asking “now what”? Calling it a participation strategy will hopefully switch the focus from simply getting there to staying there.

Besides, at least it’s not another acronym.

GoAbroad! – Business Beyond Borders

jhegland — Sun, 29 Apr 2007 00:12:56 +0000

This blog is my foray into the Web 2.0 phenom. I would like to use this newly-created forum as a sounding board for my ideas towards developing a decision support tool designed to remove the guesswork from internationalization strategies. My hope is such a tool, in software guise with social networking capabilities, will help the substantially under-served small and medium sized business market expand their operations beyond our borders.

You can expect to find many different ideas explored within these pages, from the techinal (such as best type of database design to implement) to theoretical ideas in international trade and my take on current events that will effect the international community. With a bit of luck, and support from you, GoAbroad! the blog can become a discussion epicenter of all things international business related. Please don’t hesitate to share your ideas by posting as many comments as you’d like. Please also subscribe to this blog and keep abreast of the myriad of issues facing the global economy.

Best wishes, and welcome!

Jason Hegland, founder, GoAbroad!