Analytical Paper Guidelines In this paper you will apply concepts studied in

Analytical Paper

Guidelines

In this paper you will apply concepts studied in the course to examine the environment of business in the country you selected for the Friday News. You should develop and present a position about the environment of business for your selected country (your proposed answer to the main question stated further down in this document). This is an individual written assignment―each student should write her or his own paper. The paper counts towards 30% of your final grade.

Technical Requirements:

The minimum requirement is 4 pages (double spaced with 12 font, Times New Roman, with one inch margins all around). The maximum is 6 pages (double spaced). The cover page (e.g., your name and course) and the bibliography page will not count toward the paper’s page requirement.

On the last page (this does not count towards the 4 pages), provide a bibliography (full citations of all your sources using APA or MLA citing style). In the body of the paper, when a particular statement or set of statements that you make is based on a particular source or set of sources, reference those at the end of the sentence or paragraph, as applicable, using the last name of the author and the year of publication.

Analytical Paper Contents:

Main question: Is the cultural, legal, and political environment of this country favorable to US investments?

In order to answer this question, you need to address the following:

Use Hall’s framework to characterize the culture of this country. Would the cultural characteristics you have identified present challenges or opportunities to American investors?

Describe the legal environment of the country, making specific references to the rule of law (to what extent is the country governed by law as opposed to arbitrary decisions of individual government officials) and laws that govern foreign direct investment (are there provisions to attract foreign direct investment, such as tax incentives, most-favored-nation treatment, dispute resolution fora; or provisions that restrict foreign direct investors such as high local content requirements or currency exchange restrictions).

Describe the political environment of the country, making specific references to the political regime, and discussing whether the political regime is favorable to US investors.

Grading Criteria

Maximum number of points = 30

– If the paper is turned in by the deadline, the 30 points are distributed as follows:

– 3 points for respecting technical specifications (writing in essay format rather than bullet points; meeting the requirement of minimum 4 and maximum 6 pages, double-spaced, Times New Roman 12, 1 inch margins all around; papers shorter than 4 pages or longer than 6 pages are not eligible for the full 3 points);

– 8 points for presenting a position about the environment of business for the selected country (1 point for clearly stating the position, aka the argument of the paper, in the introductory paragraph; 1 point for the position being an answer to the main question for the paper, as stated in the analytical paper guidelines―for example, despite a current law that limits forms of ownership for foreign direct investors, the prevalence of the rule of law combined with cultural similarities and political stability, make the country’s environment favorable to American investments; 2 points for showing how the legal environment supports the position; 2 points for showing how the cultural environment supports the position; and 2 points for showing how the political environment support the position)

– 2 points for discussing the rule of law, i.e. accurately identifying the extent to which the country is governed by law as opposed to arbitrary decisions of individual government officials, backed up by evidence from primary sources and/or cited findings from secondary sources

– 6 points for identifying laws that govern foreign direct investment and discussing whether they are favorable or unfavorable for foreign investors (as specified in the prompts for the assignment, examples of relevant laws would be laws designed to attract foreign direct investment, such as tax incentives, most-favored-nation treatment, dispute resolution fora; or laws designed to restrict foreign direct investors such as high local content requirements or currency exchange restrictions); identifying one relevant law would earn 2 points; identifying two relevant laws would earn 4 points; to earn 6 points, the paper should identify at least two relevant laws and identify overall trends in the country’s legal environment―for example, are most laws favorable or unfavorable to foreign direct investment/ do the laws favor foreign investors from a particular country of origin or from a particular sector of the economy/ is there an ongoing tendency to modify existing laws to make them more or less favorable to foreign investors

– 5 points for describing the cultural environment of the country using Hall’s framework (out of which 2 points for correctly identifying if the country is high or low context; and 3 points for explaining which characteristics make the country high or low context)

– 3 points for identifying the political regime (democracy/totalitarian/semi-totalitarian..)

– 3 points for discussing aspects of the political regime that make it more or less favorable to American investments (for example stability, ability to control societal interest groups that may not favor US investors, similarities to the US political regime, system of checks and balances etc.)

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