International strategy of the 500 largest firms in Latin America: an analysis from its mission and vision

José Satsumi López-Morales,Isabel Ortega-Ridaura

doi:10.21511/ppm.14(3-3).2016.06

José Satsumi López-Morales, Isabel Ortega-Ridaura

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.21511/ppm.14(3-3).2016.06

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Abstract

A mission and vision well designed are important for the business strategy. In addition, the Latin American firms are a relevant topic, but sub-studied in literature about international business. Thus, the main aim of this paper is identify the presence of international strategy (IS) in the strategic approaches of the 500 largest firms from Latin America. For this purpose, a qualitative technique of content analysis was carried out in official web pages of these firms. Several keywords were analyzed to locate the presence or absence of the IS. These words are: multinational, global, international, internationalization, world, worldwide, among others. With this, 375 firms were identified that mention the IE either its mission, vision or both. Likewise, this sample was subdivided in private firms (338) and state firms (37). The results indicate that the studied firms do not consider mostly the IE in the mission and vision. Another important finding is that companies consider the IS mostly in their vision. In adittion, another important finding is the increased presence of inclusion of IS in the vision of state companies (64.86%) above their private peers. Keywords: international strategy, Latin America, mission, vision, strategic approaches. JEL Classification: M15, M16

Highlights

The structural reforms characteristic of the neoliberalism, taken by the government bodies of the world in the decade of 1990 changed the global business setting
The aim of this study was to analyze whether the international strategy (IS) is present in the mission and vision of the 500 largest companies in Latin America
It was observed that companies consider the IS mostly in their vision, that is, in the long term, the vast majority being focused on their domestic markets

Summary

Introduction

The structural reforms characteristic of the neoliberalism, taken by the government bodies of the world in the decade of 1990 changed the global business setting. One of these reforms was the commercial opening, which boosted the emergence and development of companies that were not part of the global scenario before (Cuervo-Cazurra, 2010). Many of these came from countries which applied these reforms – mainly in Latin America and Europe – and made it to the international scenario, surpassing the typical paradigm that big companies, usually established in countries with wide capacity and knowledge (Inkpen & Ramaswamy, 2007). To quote a few examples, the Mexican company Cemex has become the world leader of cement and the Brazilian company Embraer is one of the leaders on the manufacturing of passenger’s aircrafts (Goldstein, 2010), the Argentinian company Arcor is one of the main candy producers worldwide (Kosacoff, Fortaleza, Barbero, Stengel & Porta, 2014)

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