Reference no: EM132865838

Does the United States have any advantage in either merchandise or services? (50 points)

Read the article:

Porter, M. E., & Rivkin, J. W. (2012). Choosing the United States. Harvard Business Review, 90(3), 80-93.

According to the article, which covers a survey of HBS alumni who made location decisions in the previous year, the majority of decisions involving the U.S. were about whether to move activities out of the country. Fifty-seven percent of decisions were about POTENTIALLY MOVING EXISTING ACTIVITIES OUT OF THE U.S. America lost the overwhelming majority of these contests, retaining activities only 16% of the time. Nine percent of decision involved POTENTIALLY MOVING EXISTING ACTIVITIES INTO THE U.S. Although this type of decision was rarely considered, the U.S. won three-quarters of them. Thirty-four percent of decisions involved POTENTIALLY SITING NEW ACTIVITIES IN THE U.S. OR ELSEWHERE. The U.S. won just over half of the decisions.

A generation ago, most location choices boiled down to the question, "Which countries do we want to serve?" Today improvements in information, communication and logistics technology allow firms to serve many markets from a distance, spread discrete activities around the globe, and coordinate them in a global system. Thus, managers must increasingly decide not only which countries to serve but also where to locate each activity in the value chain.

The article states, "At the corporate level, managers must learn to make location decisions better and invest to upgrade their U.S. (and foreign) communities".

If you were an executive with the responsibility to make a location recommendation today, what would you do? Would you choose a U.S. or international location? Why?