A finished BUS-390 Topic 2 entry mode comparison example, weighing four modes into one market on control, capital, speed and exit cost, with one mode chosen. Searches like "bus 390 topic 2 assignment example", "bus390 topic 2 sample" and "bus-390 topic 2 example" land here.
What a finished BUS-390 Topic 2 entry mode comparison looks like
The example compares exporting through a Seoul distributor, licensing the brand to a local manufacturer, a joint venture with a department store group, and a subsidiary the brand owns outright. Each mode carries an illustrative capital figure, labeled as such, running from almost nothing for the distributor to several million dollars for the subsidiary. Control is treated concretely: who sets retail prices, who holds the customer data, which products reach the shelf. Licensing is examined for the danger that the licensee learns the design process and competes once the agreement ends, which internalization theory predicts. The cost of leaving is priced for every mode, because a joint venture unwinds slowly and a subsidiary may have to be sold at a loss. The example chooses the distributor with a buyout option and admits what that choice gives up.
How a BUS-390 Topic 2 example is structured
Everything is laid out so the four modes can be read side by side. An opening paragraph fixes the firm, the product lines and the market, and states that the country decision has already been made. A comparison table follows, one row per mode and four columns: control, capital committed, time to first sale and cost of withdrawal. Each mode then receives a short discussion of what the table cannot show, such as the licensee's incentive to copy or a partner's drifting priorities. The choice is argued next, naming the criterion that decided it, which here is the price of being wrong about Korean demand. A passage on what the chosen mode sacrifices, chiefly control over retail pricing, keeps the argument honest. The paper ends with the conditions under which the firm would buy out the distributor and move one step up in commitment.
The market fixed before modes
South Korea is already chosen, so every comparison that follows concerns how the brand arrives there rather than where it should arrive.
Four modes in one table
Control, capital committed, time to first sale and withdrawal cost sit in adjacent columns, with every dollar figure labeled as illustrative.
What licensing quietly gives away
The example traces how a licensee could absorb the design process and compete once the agreement expires, a loss no royalty rate compensates.
Choosing on the cost of error
The distributor wins because the brand does not yet know whether Korean buyers pay full price, and being wrong through a distributor costs little.
The trigger for a buyout
Sales and margin thresholds are stated at which the firm would buy the distributor and take a larger, harder to reverse position.
Where marks go in BUS-390 Topic 2
The heaviest deduction falls on papers that argue for a country and never compare ways of entering it, which skips the one decision this topic sets. Comparisons that rate modes as high or low on control without saying what is controlled give a reader nothing to check. Leaving out the cost of withdrawal makes the committed modes look safer than they are, because the downside of a subsidiary is mostly the difficulty of selling it. Licensing described only as cheap income, with no account of what the licensee learns, misses the risk the theory exists to explain. Capital figures with no label suggest research that was never done. Papers that choose a mode without naming the criterion that decided it read as preference rather than analysis, however tidy the table looks.
Get a BUS-390 Topic 2 example written to your instructions
Send the BUS-390 Topic 2 instructions, the rubric posted in your classroom, and the firm and market your section is using. A custom example is written to those criteria, comparing the modes in one table, pricing the exit from each and defending a single choice, and it is returned in 24 to 48 hours. The first one is free.
BUS-390 Topic 2 questions, answered
How many entry modes should the comparison include?
As many as the instructions name, and in most sections at least three, since a comparison of two reads as a false choice. Four works well because it spans the range from exporting to full ownership. What matters more than the count is that every mode is scored on the same criteria, so it is plain what each losing mode lost on.
Is a joint venture a middle option?
On capital, often; on control, not necessarily. A joint venture can leave a firm with less practical control than a distributor, because decisions need a partner's agreement and the partner's priorities drift over time. It is also slow and expensive to unwind. Treating it as a safe compromise is one of the more common errors in these papers.
Should the example pick the mode with the most control?
Only if control is what the firm most needs. A small brand uncertain whether a market will pay its prices may be better served by a mode it can abandon cheaply, accepting weaker control for a year or two. The strongest papers name the one criterion that decides the case and then let it decide.