Reactive motives provide escape from governmental restrictions and various trade barriers. Companies with operating facilities, not just sales offices, overseas are known as multinational corporations. It is common for multinationals to have foreign affiliates, or partners. International managers must plan for the future just like other managers. Yet the task is made more difficult by the number of additional factors to consider, from assessing the environment, to developing assumptions, to forecasting.
External variables affect the threats and opportunities to a business.
A company expanding to international operations may move through several phases including the pre-international division phase, the international division phase, and the global structure phase. Staffing may present special problems for international organizations, especially finding technical people in less developed countries. While initial solutions may be to send domestic talent to foreign countries, most companies eventually see the need to groom foreign personnel through training and staff development programs. Additional problems for overseas managers are compensation, leadership and cultural differences, employee attitudes, communication problems, worker gender issues, control problems, and others. As might be expected, many of these issues are a function of the sociocultural characteristics of the host country.