UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCES IN KOREAN AND US EXECUTIVES STRATEGIC ORIENTATIONS

Competitive positioning in a global market requires an understanding o f the decision processes and behavioral attributes of executives from different countries. These attributes reflect the executives' cultural background, the national policies under which they have worked, and t heir home country's level of economic development (institutional conte xt). The current research compared strategic decision models of U.S. a nd Korean executives and the results suggest that criteria employed by the executives from the two countries differ Differences in instituti onal context between Korea and the U.S.A. were reflected in the weight ings of objective criteria used by the executives. Korean executives e mphasized industry attractiveness, sales and market share (because of policies that encourage growth) and U.S. executives emphasized project ed demand, discounted cash flow and ROI (because of policies and insti tutions that focus on profitability). The results suggest the importan ce of understanding the strategic orientations of international compet itors, partners in international strategic alliances and managers of i nternational subsidiaries or divisions. (C) 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.