Expanding A Business Internationally

Starting a business from the ground up has almost the same difficulties of expanding an existing business into the international market. The business owner may use the same business model but that successful model will not be as successful in the international market. The business model may not work in another culture because of the ethnocentrism, geocentrism, or polycentrism factors (Bartlett, 2008). For example, theaters in Kingdom of Bahrain are similar to the theaters in the US (even the popcorn boxes are the same). Cinema theaters in Kuwait almost the same but half of the seats (mostly the back seats) are reserved for families. Male audience not accompanying their spouses are seated in the front half of the cinemas. Kingdom of Saudi Arabia does not have cinema theaters at all, which makes the DVD business take a larger share of the entertainment market. Working days are different in this part of the word, Sunday is the first work day of the week and the weekend starts on Friday. There is a one day difference between most of the countries in the Persian Gulf area and the rest of the word. Businesses in Kuwait lose one working day when they deal with the international market.


References
Bartlett, C. A., Ghoshal, S., & Beamish, P. W. (2008). Transnational management: Text, cases, and readings in cross-border management (5 ed.). Boston: McGraw-Hill/Irwin