International Business: South Africa

International Business - FINAL DRAFT OF THE PAPER Name INT 113 Final Project Date South Africa Country Analysis Introduction: South Africa  Rationale  South Africa is the biggest economy in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and the most dynamic. Location and Geography Southern Africa   /south-africa/southafrica-political-map.html Sociocultural Environment  Country Composition The estimated population as at July 2018 was 55,380,210, black African 80.9%, coloured 8.8%, white 7.8%, Indian/Asian 2.5% (2018 est.) And coloured refers to people of mixed race ancestry (CIA, 2019).  Values and Communication South Africans are keen on consensus and prefer the win-win situations. Prefer Use titles address people and making appointments before meeting people is important in many cases, South Africans are casual in the business dealing, and negotiations can be long   Business Etiquette   South Africans mostly maintain eye contact and shake hands when meeting foreigners and the culture is transaction since people need not establish long-standing personal relationships to conduct business (Commisceo, 2019). Building relationships and networking helps to build long-term business success (Commisceo, 2019).Before negotiating it is important to build mutual trust, and personal relationships help to establish rapport (Commisceo, 2019b). Sociocultural Environment: Observation Deck  Business Observations Excessive and stringent compliance requirements affect foreign investments in South Africa even as there are many opportunities in the country. The negotiation process in the country can be lengthy, and this may affect how long people take before signing contracts and coming into agreement. According to Hostede (2019) the uncertainty score in South Africa is 49 and indicates that the people threatened by unfamiliar situations and avoid confrontations. Political-Legal Environment Government and Ideologies South Africa is a parliamentary republic and democracy, African National Congress (ANC) now under President Cyril Ramaphosa is the majority party in parliament .The main opposition parties are the Democratic Alliance or DA led by Mmusi Maimane and the Economic Freedom Fighters or EFF led by Julius Sello Malema (CIA, 2019).   Corruption Corruption and political patronage are issues affecting how business is conducted this was especially under the previous president Jacob Zuma The perceived level of public sector corruption in South Africa is 43/100 with being the most corrupt in the Transparency International (TI) scale and the country is ranked 73/180 relative to other countries (Transparency International, 2019).  Trade Regulations and Legal Considerations  South Africa has a fairly protectionist trade regime, which affects import market penetration and trade openness (BMI, 2018).There trade disputes with key export partners because of the fairly protectionist trade regime. There is also high unionization rate a...