A-Level Business: Going Global
This material trains the global business content of A level Business, going beyond exchange rates and market entry, which another material in this category already covers. For example, Pearson Edexcel's Theme 4 covers growing economies and indicators of growth (topic 4.1.1), protectionism and trading blocs (4.1.4 and 4.1.5), assessing countries as markets and production locations (4.2.2 and 4.2.3), global marketing and glocalisation (4.3.1) and the impact, ethics and control of multinational corporations (4.4.1 to 4.4.3). AQA A-level Business covers the importance of emerging economies and more open trade against protectionism (section 3.7.5) and Bartlett and Ghoshal's international, multidomestic, transnational and global strategies (section 3.9.3).
The quiz works through invented firms and countries. You will calculate and compare GDP per capita, see why the Human Development Index matters to an education firm, weigh a growing middle class against the risks of an emerging market, respond to a trading bloc's common external tariff, and explain why a cheese exporter's costs rose after the UK left the EU single market even though most of its trade stayed tariff-free. Further questions distinguish a quota from a tariff and a subsidy, identify glocalisation and an ethnocentric approach, place an engineering group in Bartlett and Ghoshal's model, and weigh a multinational's effect on a small town and the use of transfer pricing.
The material offers four formats. The quiz has twelve questions with full explanations. The flashcards hold the indicators, the trade terms, the marketing approaches, the four strategies and the arguments about multinationals. The written work has eight longer tasks: compare two countries as markets from their data, analyse selling into a trading bloc, trace the effects of a tariff, weigh standardisation against glocalisation, recommend one of Bartlett and Ghoshal's strategies, and discuss the impact, control and motives of multinationals. In the oral exam an examiner sets short invented situations, one at a time, and gives brief feedback at the end.
All businesses and countries in the questions are invented. The material is practice written by Zestly and is independent of any exam board.
- Calculate GDP per capita and use growth indicators, including the HDI, to assess a market
- Explain the opportunities and risks of emerging economies
- Analyse the effects of trading blocs and of tariffs, quotas and subsidies on firms
- Distinguish ethnocentric, polycentric and geocentric approaches and glocalisation
- Apply Bartlett and Ghoshal's international, multidomestic, global and transnational strategies
- Evaluate the impact of multinationals on host economies and the ways they are controlled
Practice material written by Zestly, based on the A level Business specifications, for example Pearson Edexcel A level Business (9BS0) Theme 4 topics 4.1 to 4.4 and AQA A-level Business (7132) sections 3.7.5 and 3.9.3.
Sample question
A clothing retailer is comparing two invented countries as markets. Country A has a GDP of £400 billion and a population of 50 million. Country B has a GDP of £90 billion and a population of 6 million. Which statement is correct?
- Country A has the higher GDP per capita, because its GDP is larger
- Country B has the higher GDP per capita (£15,000 against £8,000), so average incomes are higher there, although A is the larger market in total
- Both countries have the same GDP per capita
- Country B has a GDP per capita of £1,500
See the answer
Country B has the higher GDP per capita (£15,000 against £8,000), so average incomes are higher there, although A is the larger market in total
GDP per capita = GDP ÷ population. A: £400 billion ÷ 50 million = £8,000. B: £90 billion ÷ 6 million = £15,000. B's people are richer on average, which matters for higher-priced goods, while A's total spending power is larger. £1,500 comes from dividing by 60 million instead of 6 million. GDP per capita is also only an average and says nothing about how income is shared.