In today's increasing global environment companies have the decision and awareness to run their business as ethnocentric, polycentric or global. Each has advantages and disadvantages to the multinational approach. Essential in nature as economies become more connected; the EPG model helps us to better understand business values. Ethnocentric is the idea of running a company by favoring one's own cultural ideas above those of other countries. Polycentric is the belief that every country is unique and business needs to adapt to the culture of the country to abide by cultural differences. The beliefs that a host county’s goals and objectives would be better suited to running the business within its boundaries. Global or Geocentric, is the world-oriented approach to multinational management. This particular approach does not have a particular bias towards Ethnocentric or Polycentric, in contrast, Geocentric uses the best of both approaches in regards to Polycentric and Ethnocentric management. In today's environment which international business strategy would benefit GE as a global player in the current market? A review of current GE practices, suppliers and customer, would give one a better understanding of which approach would be most beneficial.
General Electric, with $117 Billion in Revenue and a Market value of $285 Billion is considered one the largest multinational companies in the world. GE has more than 36,000 Technicians working in Research and development sites around the world. These technicians work at GE Global Research facilities located in Bangalore, India; Dhahran, Saudi Arabia; Munich, Germany; Niskayuna and Oklahoma City, USA; Rio De Janiero, Brazil; Shanghai, China; and Tirat Carmel, Isreal. GE is located in more than 170 countries with over 330,000 employees, as Global as a company can be. It has manufacturing plants and customers in many of these countries which represent 90% of the countries in the world today.
GE is inherently a global player and certainly needs to continue on the path of Geocentric, Global management philosophy. The Geocentric Philosophy is a combination of both the Polycentric and the Ethnocentric philosophies of business permitting GE to take advantage of the benefits of each style. Due to having businesses and customer in almost every country in the world, the Geocentric principal is imperative for the continuous health of the company. GE has a core culture and philosophy, but in the same sense is malleable and has the ability to align with other cultures of the countries they do business in. “People have to know how to manage people who are different than they are” this was stated by current CEO Jeff Immelt. This philosophy strongly holds true for the future of GE. Our Economy is becoming more and more Global with the addition of recent trade policies like Nafta, Kafta and the latest bid for TPP. The ideology of GE must remain on the world stage to permit the company to take advantages that are present in the global environment. If GE were to become more ethnocentric, it would