he new foreign venture as an integral piece of its global strategy and giving the new venture sufficient time to bear fruit. This part of the strategy seems obvious enough, but time and time again companies pull out because they didn't turn a profit right away. Companies cannot expect instant results when going international. Another key factor to taking the high road is to bring back new technology from the foreign venture to the domestic operation. In contrast, the low road means taking a local approach. By doing this they are not investing to build up the venture as an integral part of the global portfolio, such as developing local managers and capabilities(Monti 6). In the low road approach, companies are applying the same performance criteria to the new foreign venture as to established domestic businesses. Taking the local approach also means they are existing the venture at the first sign of trouble. In the Asian crisis that began in 1997, smaller companies tended to exit early. In contrast, larger corporations such as General Electric, Coca-Cola, Procter & Gamble and Germany's BASF used the crisis to make opportunistic investments(Monti 7). Avoiding commitment can work for a while, but eventually a globalizing company has to make some serious investments.The research about the internationalization process provides two overall findings. First, the more a company takes the high road approach at each of the way stations on the international journey, the better its performance(Monti 9). Second, there are many differences in individual practices at each way station, such as using customer feedback when planning the trip and changing human resource policies when dealing when roadblocks. Even smaller companies can do it. Managers need to monitor their progress over time. Even if they start on the low road, there will come a time to shift to the high road. Watching for the signs of success and failure will help identif...
