The global environment of business today is characterized by forces of all kind—economic, demographic, and so on—that affect the profitability of companies and industries and the prosperity of the countries and world regions in which they operate. From the perspective of commerce, occupation, or organization, the business system evolves to take advantage of the new opportunities that arise in the global environment as a result of these changes. This chapter made the following major points:

1. Multinational companies are companies that operate and trade in many different countries around the world. Some multinationals have grown so large they can affect the well-being of the countries in which they do business. A country's government controls the political system that determines the set of laws, rules, and regulations that control the actions of people and businesses in a society. Almost all countries that are home to multinational companies have developed representative democracies.
2. The global environment is the set of forces surrounding a company that determine its ability to obtain productive resources—land, labor, capital, and enterprise.
3. Two kinds of forces in the environment that affect a company's profitability are the specific forces that directly affect a company's business model and the general forces that affect all types of companies engaged in global business.
4. Specific forces in the global environment are those that directly increase or decrease a company's sales revenues or operating costs, and thus its profitability. Four main specific forces are suppliers, distributors, competitors, and customers.
5. Four general forces affect multinationals' access to global resources and determine worldwide demand for their goods and services: political-economic, sociocultural, demographic, and legal forces.
6. The challenge facing a multinational is to develop a global business model giving it a competitive advantage over its rivals so it can achieve superior profitability.
7. Multinationals face three main challenges in managing global business commerce: (1) building global competitive advantage, (2) integrating the Internet into their business models, and (3) managing ethically.
8. Two principal occupational challenges facing global business are managing a diverse workforce and recruiting employees with the skills they need when the occupational mix changes.
9. Four principal methods of global organizing are exporting and licensing, using a network structure, joint ventures, and establishing wholly owned subsidiaries.