Issues in International Business: HRM Issues, Cultural Issues and Environmental Issues - Iloka Benneth Chiemelie

INTRODUCTION

In modern day business, organisations has learned to look far beyond customer perspectives and competitors analysis to better understanding other issues that pose risks and threats to the organisation. As multi-million companies continue to internationalise in pursuit of sustainable market share and new market penetration, difference among cultures have posed risk to these approaches and some of these business issues has been discussed below.

This paper is divided into three sections; the first section is the introduction which shades light on the main content of the paper, while the second section is the body of the research paper. The body is further divided into three sections; the first is analysis of international human resource management issues; the second is analysis of cross-cultural issues in international business; analysis of the environmental issues in international business.

All the above issues point a clear understanding of some of the current issues in businesses today. The final section is the conclusion that summarizes all discussed topics and recommendations. This research paper was done with an in-depth secondary research and study, thus a bibliography is provided to reference all cited contents in this research paper.

1.0 INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT ISSUES

As international human resource management has emerged as an academic discipline, various debates and issues have been brought up as the centre of the literature. For HR managers, a long-standing issue has been the deployment of specific practices as tools for managing people within international organisations. Over the years, certain practices have emerged, and tests can be readily found today (e.g. Briscoe et al., 2009; Dowling et al., 2007) that represents such practices for HR managers.

Practices are useful, but they are theoretical misunderstandings and debates that must be addressed to inform these HR practices. Debates that question the role of strategic human resource management when extended to large MNCs (Schuler and Tarique, 2007; Dickmann and Mu¨ller-Camen, 2006), drivers of IHRM practices on local and mufti-national firms (Farndale and Paauwe, 2007), increase international terrorism and emerging markets such as China, India, and Eastern Europe all need to be considered (Scullion et al., 2007). Some of these issues face by international businesses will be discussed below and recommended solutions to each issue provided.

WORKFORCE DIVERSITY

Some of the on-going debates on globalization argues that the we are witnessing a borderless world in which the decisions of multi-national companies are detached from national influence (Korten, 1995; Ohmae, 1995; Bartlett and Ghoshal, 1998; Wolf, 2004), while other sober debates argue that national influence continues to matter (Gray, 1998; Held et al., 1999; Hirst and Thompson, 1999; Scholte, 2003). Two major analytical categories (cultural theories and institutional theories) are broadly used to explain the impact of national dimensions on business. Workforce diversity can generally be seen as established workforce that adopts different cultural value by hiring staffs from different nations with different values.

Causes of workforce diversity: The cultural dimension sees cultural values as inherent and enduring, varying systematically between societies, and the root of acceptable organisational practices (Hofstede, 2001; Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner, 1997), while institutional dimensions emphasises that business institutions have different foundations across countries and regions (Powell and DiMaggio, 1991; Lane, 1989).  Workplace diversity is a serious issue because it can influence staff’s motivation, when workplace activities within the organisation they work for; violate their cultural belief and values.

In context, this implies that culture and way organisations do businesses vary between countries. Considering the fact that in global recruitment, employees come from different culture, it is easy to see why this is a serious business issue. For example, the Americans are more individualistic and prefer to do their duties without much supervision; on the other hand, the Japanese are more collective and believe in the existence of hierarchy and consultancy. An American staff working in Japan might not understand this cultural issue and could lead to sanctions (Scholte, 2003).  

Recommendations for controlling workforce diversity: In order to solve this issue, it is essential that international companies adapt more of instructional dimension than cultural dimensions. This will make them same in whatever culture they exist, thus easier for their employees to understand their business models and fit into these models easily. This means that organisations should train their new recruits on their acceptable business norms, to ensure free flow operation and cultural uniformity within the work place; this will reduce employee diversity in workplace (Gray, 1998; Held et al., 1999).

WORKFORCE MOTIVATION AND PRODUCTIVITY

Human resource professionals continually search for ways to appraise their workforce as a way of increasing their motivation and performance. One primary HR practices used to increase motivation and performance is compensation (Lawler, 1971). They have been recent emphasis on the use of variable schemes, in place of fixed forms of pay (e.g Greene, 2003; Marks, 2001) as a means of increasing employee productivity and thus firm’s performance. Employee’s motivation is an issue in businesses across the globe, because it can directly influence their productivity level, with lowly motivated employee’s productivity level reduced and vice versa.

Nevertheless, it could be argued that the level of employee’s output in modern business is dependent on the human relation and quality of interaction between employees in the company (Haynes and Price, 2004). Laing (1991) proposed that modern conventional officer design restricts employee’s creativity, as it tends to be based on people working on their own, offering little possibility of interaction between employees in the workplace. This difference between modern and traditional office design, led Laing (1991) to suggest that office design should go beyond the mechanistic approach (basic and traditional office deign style), and take the dynamic and flexible nature of office environment into consideration.

Causes low workforce motivation and productivity: In a breakdown analysis, this implies that money is no longer enough to keep employees satisfied, and organisations should look more into their workplace design to offer corporation and idea sharing between employees. Because motivation level depends on people and circumstances, it would be implicit to assume that money will work at all times. For instance, imagine offering money to a staff that just lost a member of his or her family in other to keep him or her motivated, there is a high probability of it not being sufficient enough. Employees motivation are generally caused by the level of appreciation they get for jobs well done, and assurance of self-actualization bestowed on them from the organisation (Hirst and Thompson, 1999; Scholte, 2003).

Recommendations for controlling productivity and motivation issues: In order to tackle this difference amongst human behaviour, it must be agreed with Laing (1993), that companies should look more into workplace design to offer direct communication and idea exchange between employees. This will ensure that less motivated employees will be motivated by the colleagues, either through words of encouragement or setting a good example (role model) for them.

TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT ISSUES

Knowledge has been described as an essential tool that helps firms to compete. Thus, it is necessary to continually develop and manage firm’s knowledge in order to keep abreast with the continuous changes in internal and external environments (Davenport and Prusak, 1998; Jarrar, 2002) and gain competitive edge. The organisations that learn fastest and utilizes their knowledge most effectively are most likely to become and remain market leaders (Pemberton and Stonehouse, 2000; Smith, 2008).

Causes of training and development issues: these issues mainly arise in organisations because, organisational training and knowledge management involves both budgeted expenditures and organisational time, this becomes an issue as companies will have to sacrifice and invest both financials and timely (Gupta et al., 2000). This is because companies will either employee trainers to train their staffs, or send them on a training course; which the company must dully pay for and also sacrifice these employees’ work time for their training (Lee, 2000). Therefore, it raises eyebrows on the impact of workforce training and their benefits in the organisation.

Figure 1: impact of organisational training and knowledge management in companies.

Recommendations for controlling training and development issues: as highlighted in the figure (1) above, there is no doubt that organisational training and knowledge management is essential for companies to maintain competitive advantage in today’s high competitive market. Thus, training and development is a necessity for organisation’s to aim to create and maintaining competitive edge. For organisations to tackle the both budget and time issues, it is recommended that quality knowledge training programs be designed so that employees can transfer their knowledge back to their subordinates. This will ensure less expenditure on training and development. Scheduling training period outside working hours such as during weekend will also ensure that employee’s working time is not used for training.

EMPLOYEE BEHAVIOUR

The intellectual capital of any organisation is often its most valuable asset and organisational performance have been viewed to be dependent on organisation’s ability to capture, develop and exploit the implicit and explicit knowledge that exists within the organisation. The problem organisations in general face is that, although they need to access employee’s knowledge, these calls for extra role behaviour which is often outside their explicit job description. Employee’s behaviour is a serious issue in organisations, their responsibility rate is needed in building a more competent and productive unit that values organisational cultures (Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner, 1997).

Causes of change in employee’s behaviour: the traditional employment relationship of long term commitment, reciprocity and job security has been replaced in most organisations by high level of instability (Cappelli, 1999; Noe et al, 2005). This reduction in employers guarantees to employees, have resulted in consequent reduction of employees to the organisation, and highlights the importance of understanding how employees make their decision on discretionary extra-role contribution to the organisation.

Issues like this, coupled with high technologies available to employees have deflected ways employees of nowadays act in their workplace. For instance, they have been high records of employee accessing the internet for personal purpose, such as checking their emails, socializing, online gaming and videos (sometimes accessing immoral and prohibited sites such as pornographic sites), and other activities that are not related to their works. This reduces their production time and limits their productivity level, as they spend their working hours for private reasons (Hofstede, 2001), Thus, it can be seen why this is becoming an increasing human resource management issue, as organisations get to pay for these times spent at workplaces, whether they were productive or not.

Recommendations for controlling changes in employee’s behaviours: as this accounts for organisational productivity level, it is an issue that must be tackled to the highest level, to ensure that employees fully utilize their working time for company productivity rather than for their private use. It is recommended, that an IT department should be instituted to ensure that employees only have access to necessary websites that they need for productivity, and regulate their internet use to ensure that the internet is only used when necessary.

COMPENSATION AND BENEFIT SCHEMES

Reward literature has largely focused on narrow definition of reward, examining pay, both fixed in the form of salary and wages, and varying schemes such as incentives and bonuses (Gerhart and Rynes, 2003). They have been significant researches conducted to examine factors that determine an organisation’s choice of reward system (Cox, 2000). For instance, Gerhart and Milkovich (1992) suggested a compensation decision model portraying how both environmental and organisations factors, like the organisation’s business and HR strategy, directed the reward system. Compensation and benefit scheme is an essential issue within the organisation, because it directly influence employee’s motivation rate and productivity level (Dowling et al., 2007)

Causes of compensation and benefit issues: Most argued cases of compensation and benefit is whether executives and managers deserve their high pays and rewards comparing their productivity level in the organisation with most of the staffs that perform the day to day business (sometimes working overtimes) to ensure that the company meets their projected production rate. Nevertheless, these arguments tend to disregard the fact that the managers stand a high chance of facing any negative outcome in the company. For instance, he has the responsibility of ensuring that are the projects are meet at the right time, and any under-performance, the manager always stand the chance of being fired before any of his or her subordinate (Briscoe et al., 2009; Dowling et al., 2007).

No matter how we go on to base our ideas and arguments on this particular case, an undeniable fact is that employee’s compensation and benefits influences their loyalty to the company and their productivity. Thus, it is an important human resource management issues that should be looked on to with both eyes open, as in this case; compensation and benefits involves company expenditure and has some psychological effect on the employees.

Recommendations for controlling compensation and benefits related issues: it is recommended that companies should deploy both materialistic and non-materialistic benefits that makes employee fell like they are a member of the company. This will ensure that they are always motivated even when they don’t receive compensations for certain tasks. On the other hand, companies should ensure that they fully reward employees of any compensation of benefits they are due to get as this could impact their motivation level. In cases where this is not meet, full detailed explanation should be made to the employees to explain to them why such cases occurred.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, the topic discussed above presents a clear view of some of the issues in international human resource management. These issues such as workforce diversity, employee motivation and behaviour generally influence the productivity level of the whole workforce. And as discussed above, businesses need to control these issues in order to ensure continuous productivity. Thus, recommendations were offered on best possible means of controlling these issues and possibly eliminating them from the business scene.

2.0 CROSS-CULTURAL ISSUES IN INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS

Due to rise in globalization, service providers have shifted to high international marketing (Malhota et al., 2005; Zhang et al., 2008). This have created numerous opportunities for marketing managers in terms of market development, but it also presents many cross-cultural issues (Ueltschy et al., 2007). Since subjection to cultural norm is essential for in determining the value orientation of the individuals in a group, culture is expected to be a major determinant of consumer’s attitudes and behaviours (Cleveland and Laroche, 2007). Although they are not always aware of the ways in which their cultural backgrounds influence their lives.

The most widely recognized as well as strongly criticized cross-cultural dimensions are those proposed by Hofstede. Hofstede’s (1980) original study was based on a survey of IBM managers and employees in over 40 countries. Bhagat et al (2002) presented a clear analysis of all cross-cultural issues faced by business around the world. There are (1) language differences, (2) religion, (3) legal issues, (4) time difference, (5) workplace issues, (6) conflict resolution, (7) economic freedom, and (8) motivation system. Further emphasis will be played on five of these issues below.

LANGUAGE AND COMMUNICATION

Promoting knowledge creation and sharing in an organisation is essential for today’s challenging business environment (Kogut and Zander, 1992). This is because of the argument that knowledge sharing leads to improved performance due to improved decision making and better coordination (Zarraga and Bonache, 2003). In practice though, knowledge sharing have been proven to be challenging (Szulanski, 1996; Argote et al., 2000), and if knowledge is not shared; the cognitive resources available in an organisation remains underutilized.

This is particularly challenging in a multi-national organisation, where linguistic and communication differences tend to create barriers to understanding (Hambrick et al., 1998; Von Glinow et al., 2004). Studies have supported this argument, by showing that strengths and weaknesses of diversity in an organisation come from different national, linguistics, cultural and social background of its members (Hambrick et al., 1996). And it was pointed out that language differences have a huge impact on group interaction (Marschan-Piekkari et al., 1999a, b; Selmer, 2006).

Causes of language and communication issues: On a contextual level, this is easy to explain as individuals who speak different languages within a given organisation will have difficult in communicating either their actual or overall intention to themselves. Thus, this will limit their ability to share ideas among each other. Haven understood the critical factors this pose to a multi-national organisation, it is essential this issue is resolved to ensure proper communication and knowledge sharing.

Recommendations for controlling language and communication issues: Therefore, it can be recommended that international organisations should adapt a central language for communication, and educate their staffs on this language to ensure fluency in both speaking and understanding. This will build uniformity among staffs and thus, limit the threats posed by language differences.

RELIGIOUS ISSUES

Religion can be defined as the belief in the existence of a supernatural being and life after death. This implies that those who believe in this supernatural power also believe that their life after here will be judged by the way they lived on earth; thus religion had been known to influence individual conducts. Because one’s habits and behaviour are part of their identity (Mirchandani and Aprilfaye, 2010), it is not surprising that religion can influence an individual’s decision making process in the business world.

During his examination on the relationship between ethnicity and certain aspects of consumer behaviour, Hirschman (1981) suggested that ethnicity can cause changes in consumption pattern, rather than the correlation of purchasing power. This study was built on McClellan’s (1961) investigation on the relationship between achievement and ethnic norms, and Veblen’s (1919) study on Jewish innovativeness and the tendency to seek information.

Causes of religious issues: Trying to illustrate this concept with reference to Islamic and Buddhist preaching, it can easily be seen that religion can influence individual’s decision making process. While Buddhism preaches quickly to act and handwork, the Islamic religion preaches total dedication of time to God, and this can be seen in their belief of praying 5 times a day, which certain religions might see as a waste of time in pursuit of material things. Issues like this can influence decision making process in the business world. This also influence their productivity level, as can generally be seen with the Chinese (Buddhist) desire to be the best (Malhota et al., 2005; Zhang et al., 2008).

Recommendations for controlling religious issues: On a broader case, it has been proven that business organisations and personnel are more likely to work together with people from the same religion. For instance, a core Muslim man would prefer businesses between another Muslim man rather than another religion. This issue becomes serious, as religion has been known to cause most of the big violence across the globe such as Al-Qaeda in Iraq, Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan. It is recommended, that company and investors alike value religious norms and principles seriously, and this will limit the possibility of violence and improve business relationships.

LEGAL ISSUES

Just like culture and other social factors, rules and regulations of a given nation differ in comparison to other nations. Every country across the globe has a system of government which they operate with, and different system have different rules and regulations for both individuals and companies alike. For instance, in socialist societies like Vietnam, the country takes full control of almost all resource and decides how to distribute these resources amongst its citizens (Szulanski, 1996; Argote et al., 2000),

Causes of legal issues: in republican states such as France, this is more fractional as government and private investors alike have different fractions of the national economy, and can decide how they want to utilize these resources for their own benefit and benefits of the whole country (Zhang et al., 2008). In most advances nations such as the UK, and USA; the democratic system gives individuals more rights than the government and as it is termed “government by the people, with the people and for the people”, individuals can own any given amount of resources that they can afford to own. This is also applicable on issues like Privacy and Patent right violation – which is treated with high accord in the United States and the UK, but with low reference in China and Vietnam.

These difference on international law presents challenges to multi-national companies and investors alike, as they will have to adjust to the given rules and regulations of each country. While companies could be ripping profits in the United States, due to open government system; they could be making huge losses in Vietnam, due to government country of all resources within the state. This becomes a great issues that must be examined before companies and investors decided to invest in any given nation.

Recommendations for controlling legal issues: In other to avoid this issues, it is recommended that both companies and investors should conduct an in-depth study on the rules and regulations of the country they plan to invest in; as it will enable them to understand the does and don’t, thus providing an atmosphere for successful business operations.

WORKPLACE ISSUES

Over the years, organisations have had to face an increasingly complex and rapidly changing world, and workplace has been identified as key role player in ensuring that organisations meet up with these fast changes. This has led to corporate and private sectors responding with new and better workplace solutions, and management designs that recognizes the function of space than simply accommodating operational imperatives (van Ree, 2002).

Causes of workplace issues: the organisational efforts to combat these issues are poured on dry lands, as certain activities within the workplace fell to influence productivity either due to employee incompetency or behaviours. Numerous workplaces issues arise in international business and they can include sexual harassment, individual threats, improper planning and management, and hazardous and poor working conditions. Different nations see this in a different way, but on an organisational level; it is considered unacceptable in most nations; as productivity is highly linked with workplace coordination (Becker and Pearce, 2003).

Although some of these issues are on a low-level in most developed countries such as Germany, USA, UK and France, it is still rising in the developing countries. They have been reported cases of workers being abused in China, India and other low labour cost countries; where workers are subjected to over 16hours of work per day with almost no pay. On an international level, this is something multi-national companies must understand because it could lead to legal prosecutions and destruction of brand image.

Recommendations for controlling workplace issues: To avoid this issue, it is recommended that companies internationalizing into other countries besides their country of origin, should conduct an in-depth study on the workplace issues in their intended country of entrance and apply ethical business approaches in their operational system to ensure that these issues are either eliminated or reduced to the lowest level possible. This will ensure that staffs are motivated and loyal to the company.

 ECONOMIC FREEDOM

Economic freedom can be defined as the ability of one to pursue economic activity with limited interference from government. It is widely understood that economic freedom endangers prosperity and there is some correlation between economic freedom and capital market size return in a given country. For instance, Li (2002) proved that greater economic freedom and stronger shareholder protections are positively related to the relative market capitalization. This was also supported byStocker (2005), who provided a review of the relationship between economic freedom and equity returns.

Causes of economic freedom issues: applying common business sense, it can be sense that the more money someone can spend, the better the economy in which he spend the money will become. But, if an extensive review is to be conducted, it can be seen that this has a negative impact on the national economy as was illustrated by the 2008 recession which plunged the United States mainly due to credit debt from various financial institutions that loaned hugely to their customers. This can also impact production level, as people have unlimited supply of money; companies tend to compete based on production level thus producing in excess, latter reducing the cost of their products to clear their stocks which will in return, result in business loose and economic wastages (Peel et al., 2005; Diez Roux et al., 2001).

Recommendations for controlling issues of economic freedom: this issue can be controlled by implementing regulations on financial institutions to monitor their lending, so that they are not placed in the red spot due to over-borrowing of money out to customers more than they can recruit back. The economic freedom can also be limited by ensuring that certain criteria such as financial backup is meet before licence can be issued to certain individuals within the society to start-up a new business or acquire already existing business. This will ensure economic stability and long-run economic development in the future (Nyberg et al., 2000).

CONCLUSION

Culture can be seen as people ways of life, which includes their dress code, belief, value and heritage. As human differ by race and law, these are the main effects of culture because different societies have different ways of doing things. In a globalized world where companies adopt to the system of workforce diversity by employing different people from different countries, numerous issues have been created by this issue of workforce diversity.

Some of these issues have been highlighted and discussed in this research project and they include issues such as workplace bullying, religion and legal issues. As discussed earlier in the assignment, in cases where these issues are not well controlled, they can result to some negative effects such as low motivation level in the workforce. Nevertheless, the research paper was concessive enough in providing all relevant ways to control these issues in the recommendation sections.   

3.0 ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES IN INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS

Over the decades, westernized countries have reaped benefits of industrialization, but at the same time also suffer from environmental deterioration results from this. Some of these environmental issues include air pollution, water and soil contamination and nuclear radiationLeman et al., 2009a). These issues have had their toil on people’s living conditions and lead to destruction of natural resources. These environmental issues not only do damage to their main source of pollution, but are carried further across the globe and as a result treated as global issues. Some of these environmental issues and how they affect business are described below.

INDUSTRIAL POLLUTION

Since the global shift from agricultural development to manufacturing and heavy industries, our environment has witnessed increase in generation of pollutants thus resulting in the deterioration of air quality, especially in industrialized countries (Latif et al., 2006). In manufacturing industries, air pollution arises from the surroundings and the production process itself. The air pollution comes in different types whether in the form of gas or liquids (ACGIH, 1998), and such example is from welding (Leman et al., 2009a).

Causes of industrial pollution: Government across the globe have introduced specific guidelines to monitor airborne contaminants for chemicals hazardous to human health (DOSH, 2002). Nevertheless, it has been discovered that the monitoring process is not given priority in certain countries, and due to insufficient equipment, toxic gasses are not measured in some workplaces across the globe (Leman et al., 2009b).

On a business context, industrial pollution influences various negative behaviour and outcomes from both companies and stakeholders. Some of these results health and safety issues related to workplace such as contamination, poisoning and damage to body organs due to exposure to hazardous chemicals. On the societal point of view, this can result in boycotting of certain products or country due to fear of contamination. A good example is the plunge Japanese food industries are undergoing due to the recent nuclear radiation of 2011.

Recommendations for controlling industrial pollution: In order to resolve these issues, it is recommended that proper safety management should be adapted by industries across the globe to ensure that their staffs are not exposed to hazardous chemicals. According to Chu (2007), strict operational measures and guidelines for industries and industrial innovation is can reduce industrial pollution and thus make our environment for human friendly and less polluted.

CLIMATE CHANGE

Scientific evidence strongly suggests that climate change has diverse impacts on human health, such impacts includes increased risks of extreme weather events, and rise in sea level, and infectious disease dynamics (WHO, 2009a). the World Health Organisation estimates that about 150 thousand deaths occur annually in low-income countries each year, due to four main climate sensitive health outcomes: (1) crop failure and malnutrition; (2) diarrheal diseases; (3) malaria; and (4) flooding (WHO, 2009a, b).

Causes of climate change: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports that human are affecting the global climate by engaging in activities that yields greenhouse gassed (GHG) (IPCC, 2009; Environmental Protection Agency, 2009). Some of these issues that directly or indirectly impact climate change can be road accidents, bush burning and incineration, and over consumption of electrical energy.

Current scientific literature has proved that climate change has a negative effect on the global economy and urges countries to reduce GHG emission ((Stern, 2007; Ackerman andStanton, 2006). As highlighted above, climate change can lead to crop failure thus, it is easy to visualize the literature’s point of view as crop failure will lead to loose of business resources both in the form of monetary and workforce capital. Climate change had also been identified as the biggest threat to human health in the 21^st century (Costello et al., 2009).

Recommendations for controlling climate changes: In order to reduce climate change, certain initiatives are recommended – reduced use of motor vehicle as a means of transportation (Capon et al., 2009; Younger et al., 2008), and improved access to public transport as a means of decreasing air pollution, reduced chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, cardiovascular morbidity and mortality and lung cancer (Peel et al., 2005; Diez Roux et al., 2001; Nyberg et al., 2000). This is essential for sustainable health and economic benefits.

INCREASED PRESSURE ON NATURAL RESOURCES

They are three kinds of natural resources (Reijnders, 1999) which can be identified as: continuous resources such as air and sunlight, and their used do not lead to any reduction in their size; renewable resources such as woods and crops which can be harvested – but not faster than their replenishment rate; and non-renewable resources such as fossil fuels and minerals. Non-renewable resources are created by a slow geographical process, so slow in human terms that their use diminishes available stocks.

Causes of increased pressure on natural resources: With increasing population growth rate, consumption of these natural resources are always on the high, and there is extra pleasure to find substitutes or alternatives to some of these resources. Our daily lives are dependent on fuels as a source of survival; from the cars we drive, to the electricity, and manufacturing plants. This constant use of fuel is highly depleting available resources. The world population is expected to reach 9 billion by 2050, and it must be considered that these fossil fuels are non-renewable and required both shift in geography and time to accumulate. If no properly managed and regulated, the world will run out of power as the time required to accumulate fossil fuels can take up to thousand years (Peel et al., 2005; Diez Roux et al., 2001; Nyberg et al., 2000).

Recommendations for controlling this issue: In other to control this risk, the same perception long conceived still remains the ultimate solution which is birth control. If birth is not controlled, the available resources will be under high pressure and the survival of humanity could be under the blink, as lack of fossil fuel could potential disorganize or destabilize modernization.

WASTE MANAGEMENT

One major problem of urbanisation is solid waste generation. This problem has seen an increase over the past decades (Onibokun, 1989), because of the increasing population which results in increased consumption and waste accumulation. Solid wastes have been classified into three basic categories – residential; municipal and industrial (Pickford, 1983; Chefetz et al., 1996), but no matter what category they fall into, the fact is that waste management is increasing becoming a global issue.

Causes of waste management issues: The presence of solid waste in our environment has numerous potential public health issues, safety and associated environmental hazards. If left unmanaged, waste can become breeding ground for disease carrying vectors (for instances, mosquitos, vermin etc.), lead to waterways contaminations, increase visual and odour problems, release toxic pollutants to the environment, introduce secondary hazards such as blocked waterways and fire hazards. In addition to physical impacts, poor waste management can have negative impact on the economy by diminishing recovery speed after a disaster thus leading to added expenditures following a disaster.

Recommendations for controlling waste management issues: This can be reduced by implementing proper waste management systems such as drilling of drainage, compound sewage and sewage collection services by the government, use of waste bins and refuse bin emptying, and education to the general public on the importance of waste management and waste control. This will offer a safer environment and cleaner atmosphere for both humans and animals. On the other hand, it will reduce expenditure on health related issues cause by improper waste management.

OVERPOPULATION AND ENVIRONMENTAL DETERIORATION

Virtually all issues discussed above can be linked back to overpopulation. Climate change together with its rapid changes and stressed heaped on the flora and fauna of the biosphere, now manifest in environmental deterioration and loss of species (Lincoln, 2006, pp. 21-6). It is now an accepted reality between scholars that the biotic web, as it has existed for many millenniums, is now on the verge of global crisis and possible collapse. Science and technology, coupled with human opportunistic signature gives clear sign of grave concerns regarding the future quality of lives on the planet.

Causes: From the above state, it is easy to visualize why overpopulation is the root of virtually all environmental issues; because it directly applies pressures on all available resource, both natural and man-made resource. Increase in population results in increased consumption which yields high pressure on available resources and causes climate damages.

Recommendations: Overpopulation can be controlled by birth control and use of contraception’s to reduce unwanted pregnancy. Another recommendation is parenthood education in developing countries to teach youths on the importance of being well prepared before giving birth. Reduction in birth rate will ensure sustainability of available natural resource and life on earth; both human life and wild life alike.

CONCLUSION

The deteriorating effects of the global environment have raised alarms and debates on the international scene in numerous ways. Many of these effect has been claimed to be product of increasing technological development and industrialization. This research was developed to analyse some of the environmental issues faced by international business. Some of these issues as highlighted above include overpopulation issues, waste management issues, population issues, high pressure on natural resources etc. Due to the high impact these issues have on the environment and the business in general, it was deemed necessary to provide recommendation for these issues and this research was exact in doing such by suggesting ways these issues can be minimized, in order to ensure profitable business environment.

CONCLUSION

From the above topics, we have been able to discussion issues related to modern business world and how these issues can be resolved. In today’s economy, they are numerous pre- and post-determinants of economic sustainability and most of these issues have received scholarly attention recently.

One of the issues discussed is international human resource issues which are related to both workplaces and workforces of modern international companies. These issues discussed highlights some of the talking points in relation to how these issues result on negative impacts on the company and business. For instance, harassment at workplace has been found to reduce motivation level of the workforce.

The second issue discussed is cross-cultural issue, while the final issue is environmental issue on businesses across the globe. Some of the talking points are how language barrier and overpopulation negatively influence businesses across the globe. While language barriers create vacuum in the knowledge sharing stream, overpopulation is known to have induce high pressure on available resources; thus leading to poor quality of life and ill-health within the populace.  

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