Managing Political Risk Assessment

Strategic Response to Environmental Change

Stephen J. Kobrin

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Year: 2024
• Print ISBN: 9780520356726
• eBook ISBN: 9780520310094
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

The accurate assessment of political risk can make the difference between success and failure for a multinational corporation, which must keep corporate objectives in sight while operating in a large number of widely varying environments. While environmental or political risk assessment has become an explicit function in many firms and is inherent in all foreign investment, the uncertainties of foreign political environments continue to pose critical problems for managers.
 
In Managing Political Risk Assessment, Stephen J. Kobrin describes and analyzes the techniques of political risk assessment employed by U.S. multinationals. His analysis draws on organizational theory, economics, political science, and international relations. The study reveals that those charged with political risk assessment have often not been fully integrated into the core of the managerial process, information from subsidiaries is often biased, and the flow of data is poorly controlled. As a result, virtually all firms experience difficulties in using environmental assessment in planning and making decisions. Kobrin persuasively argues that the thorough integration of the assessment function into the managerial process is a necessary step, as the need for political risk assessment intensifies with the increased interaction between international business and its social and political surroundings.
 
Political scientists, institutional economists, managers, and students and teachers of international business will all profit from Kobrin’s excellent synthesis of knowledge in this area of scholarly interest.

 
This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1982.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Organizations and Environments
• 3 The Relevant Environment: Political Risk and Political Assessment
• 4 The Political Environment and the International Firm
• 5 Institutionalization of the Political Assessment Function
• 6 Organization of the Political Assessment Function
• 7 Managerial Perceptions of Political Risk
• 8 Scanning the Political Environment
• 9 Evaluation and Utilization of Political Assessments
• 10 Conclusions
• Appendix A Research Methods
• Appendix B Multivariate Logit Analysis of the Determinants of Institutionalization
• Appendix C Political Risk Assessment Methods
• Bibliography
• Index