Customer Reviews

Blunders in International Business

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2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

All business students should read this book. It is absolutely amazing to find out what people have already gone through to bring a business international.

Does your CEO have the audacity to believe that he will not make the same mistakes that others made? Is your marketing team prepared for each and every market? This book teaches you to carefully prepare for each and every market and not take ANYTHING for granted. Do your research, or you will be the punchline of an joke or two at some International Marketing conferences somewhere in the future.

Dave Ricks lays out everyone else's blunders in such a way that you wonder if they could have really happened. Although it is sad that these mistakes happened, the message is that without preparation people make big mistakes in international business. These major business mistakes could happen to anybody (who does not know to avoid them.)

If you are looking for anectdotes for a business class or international business curriculum, you can save yourself the trouble of research and find out what Mr. Ricks has painstakingly already researched.

Although there is no way to find out what to avoid in every market... today's business students should buy this book and read it often so they can recognize when they need help avoiding the pitfals in today's increasingly global business world.

As a biingual international manager of an import/export firm I see many of these blunders cropping up everyday. Some companies are better prepared to handle them before they become broadcast over teh whole world. Many Mexican companies I have seen do not know their translation takes on a funny twist in English. But if I told them would they believe me?... I hope reading this book will make me realize I need help myself sometimes too.

Dave Ricks is a respected faculty member at Thunderbird, one of the world's most innovative International Business Master's Programs.

In just the first half of the book, I found 5 urban legends being presented as fact (e.g., that ancient thing about "bite the wax tadpole", the one about Africans thinking that baby pictures on baby food meant the food was made of babies).

Granted, the latest update was in 1999, but the facts should have been verifiable and verified even then.

Take the anecdotes with a grain of salt.

"Once upon a time there was a company which...." and "it once offered a product which's name sounded badly in another language". Unfortunately we do not know the details. Such examples are not so often but they exist in this book and one can harbor doubts whethere they are true. Some of them may be just made up. Therefore the value of this book may be not so great.

If this is the book I think it is, first published in the 80's, it is the only business book that has ever made me laugh out loud. Over and over again.

Don't be put off -- it _is_ a serious business book, and it treats the issues in a systematic fashion. But it is well-written, too, and the examples the author uses to make his points will have you chuckling.

This book reads fairly quickly so it's not a waste of time, but it's not a weighty book - you won't learn a ton. But you will gain a few good anecdotes that can be leveraged to make a few points in class (or work I suppose). Recommend buying a used version.

I was required to read this book for my International Management class. I thought it would be another boring book, but it was anything but boring. It is actually very interesting. I've read, or seen international blunders on the internet or by email, but this book has a host of blunders that will keep you reading on and on and on. Check it out!

Very slow, never received my product, and never heard back from the seller. I would not recommenced purchasing anything from this seller