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The main purpose of this paper is to analyze the market entry strategies for companies which are involved with Chemicals in Foods, Agriculture, Irrigation aspects, which equally have cultural effects in different regions.

The case contains a careful analysis of the literature about the Monsanto Company, articles and journals have been reviewed to supply the information on the problems being faced by Monsanto.

The analysis or the suggestions are the view points of the author, basically involving the Transnational approach for such companies. The suggestions or opinions are the responses like “What it could or would have done”, “This should be implemented” and so on so forth.

Since this paper is associated with the suggestions by the author, the only limitation can be personal judgments.

In this respect, the paper combined various aspects of TNCs, Strategy and apply these concepts to the company to proceed in not only home country but also in host countries.

There have been few articles already written with respect to Monsanto, but sole aim of all these articles was to identify the problems faced by Monsanto and criticisms faced by it. But the articles conducts a company analysis, identifies problems and provides possible theoretical solutions in order to overcome the problems.

In 1979, the company's Annual Report stated that Monsanto operations included “more than 180 manufacturing plants, laboratories, and technical centers in 20 nations. The company's products [were] sold in 123 nations.” According to the April 30, 1984, Fortune, “Monsanto hit its nadir in 1980; though sales increased 6 percent to $6.57 billion, earnings plunged 55 percent to $149 million….[The company] lost over $300 million on old‐line businesses, with fibers and styrene proving the worst performers.” Its return on stockholder equity was 5.3 percent.

Large agricultural producers often demand seed with high yielding genetics along with specialty traits specific to their particular needs. Dairyland Seed Company prides itself on its superior genetics and a research program that adds specialty traits while retaining the qualities of the original variety. Dairyland sources specialty trait technology from two competing suppliers – DuPont and Monsanto. Each of these suppliers is currently pursuing a strategy of forward integration through aggressive marketing programs and acquisitions. The implications for access to future technologies and long‐term survival are profound, and leave Dairyland and other smaller seed companies with strategic decisions to make. This paper examines a channel of distribution for agricultural biotechnologies and the decisions faced by a small, reputable seed company when dealing with its large multinational biotechnology suppliers. Who should Dairyland be partnering with, and can Dairyland balance supplier dependency in an attempt to avoid being eliminated from the channel?

This chapter expands the limited work on leadership in the digital age and considers how the relative inclusivity of organizational identity as well as its corresponding organizational scripts affects who performs “leading tasks,” formal leaders or committed supporters, in two social movement groups. Drawing on a random sample of 5% of Facebook posts from committed supporters and 1% of Facebook posts from group administrators associated with March Against Monsanto (MAM) and Occupy Monsanto (OM), two groups that have shared general goals but different organizational identities, we find that the clarity of an organization’s script shapes who performs leading tasks and how they perform them. MAM, which has an exclusive organizational identity and relatively defined script, encouraged supporters to engage with one another directly and perform a broad range of leading tasks even as it reinforced the group’s hierarchy. OM, which has an inclusive organization identity and relatively undefined script, had less supporter engagement. Absent scripts regarding the rules of participation, OM’s committed supporter primarily shared information with other site users, but rarely engaged them directly. We conclude with a discussion of our results and outline additional avenues for analyzing leadership in the digital age.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the antecedents, internal/external drivers and circumstances that diminish the importance of reputation and permit it to be circumvented in the context of a fusion (Monsanto-Bayer) and propose a comprehensive stakeholder perception-molding (“sense-giving”) model to counter reputation-damaging factors.

The present study is a longitudinal case study of merging entities using an intra-organizational evolutionary perspective combined with external analysis.

Reputational hurdles can be successfully circumvented by a multifaceted strategy leveraging timely and tailored combinations of cognitive, conative and linguistic perception-molding strategies for effective management of diverse stakeholder perception processes spanning across identity orientation, legitimacy, posture, consistency, commitment, justification and transparency.

The research is susceptible to the general limitations of case studies such as omission bias in terms of focusing on only two purposefully chosen market-leader firms involved in a merger, though every effort was made to track competitor movements, broad trends in markets and the micro- and macro-environments.

The proposed heptagonal reputation circumvention perception-molding framework (Figure 1) summarizes various actionable strategies to help managers develop a global vision and portfolio of strategies to proactively or reactively manage attacks on reputation.

An in-depth and multi-decade study of antecedents and internal/external drivers of the successful mega-fusion of two companies with a long history of reputational shocks was leveraged to provide unique insights into the interplay of various strategies targeting diverse stakeholder perceptions. These insights were then generalized to create a comprehensive perception-molding strategic framework to help firm managers circumvent reputational tarnishment hurdles.

Purpose – The objective of this chapter is to examine and provide new perspectives on the contributions of public and private R&D to biotech crop improvement.

Methodology/approach – The chapter examines a set of topics that have affected the way that research is undertaken on plant germplasm improvement and how it has changed with the genetically modified (GM) trait revolution.

Findings – Although the basic science providing the foundations for GM crops was undertaken in the public sector, GM traits and GM crop varieties have been developed almost exclusively by the private sector. The biotech events leading to GM traits are currently being developed largely by five companies – all having ties to both the chemical and the seed industries. The GM crop revolution started in North American in 1996 and has spread slowly to the largest developing countries that have large agricultural sectors, including Argentina, China, Brazil, and India, but not to Europe or Japan.

Practical implication – To shed new light on the economic reasons for private sector dominance in GM crop varietal development in selected crops but not in others.

Social implication – Shows how GM traits have contributed to technical change and declining real food prices.

Environmental scanning is “the study and interpretation of what is happening in society at large today in order to forecast developments in the business operating environment of tomorrow,” according to the excellent definition used by the Daniel Yankelovich Group.

Monsanto is facing an uncertain near-term financial outlook, and this case challenges students to generate an operating forecast (income statement and balance sheet operating accounts). The case naturally lends itself to sensitivity analysis related to sales growth assumptions. Suitable for MBA and undergraduate learners, it covers the basics of forecasting without introducing the complexities associated with financing. A teaching note is available.

By keeping a finger on the pulse of the marketplace, Monsanto, in only five years, built its Lawn and Garden group into a $170 million SBU.

This paper aims to study how multinational enterprises (MNEs) can best integrate legitimacy concerns into their new product-launching strategy to successfully introduce high-value hi-tech innovations in emerging countries.

Theoretical constructs on the role and process of legitimacy construction for the introduction of a new product are built upon the existing literature. Then they are validated and refined through the formulation and analysis of case studies of the launch of genetically modified cotton seeds by Monsanto in India and a HIV/AIDS drug cocktail by Merck in Brazil.

Legitimacy construction can serve MNEs to face challenges successfully while launching high-value hi-tech products in emerging countries. Challenges to MNEs are likely to be founded on a combination of four types of uncertainties: technological, commercial, organizational and societal. Expected challengers are public agencies and actors representing civil society. An MNE can prepare itself through legitimacy construction along three dimensions: redesign of technology, revision of marketing strategy and non-market investments. To implement the aforesaid, MNEs can engage in outreach in the form of strategic patience, market transaction, business collaboration, compromise and/or confrontation with diverse carefully chosen stakeholders.

The authors limited ourselves to tracing only the formal interactions of MNEs, while it is well-known that many informal and backdoor activities can also accompany their growth in emerging economies.

Legitimacy construction can help MNEs face challenges successfully while launching high-value hi-tech products in emerging countries. This calls for an evaluation of the systemic uncertainties followed by the formulation of a strategy for legitimacy construction and implementation through outreach to diverse systemic actors. Strategic patience can yield positive returns. Market transactions can serve as economic anchors. Collaboration can be pursued with parties who can share the costs of legitimization construction and/or reduce technological and marketing uncertainties. Confrontation should be the last choice. Compromise is the most probable but not the only outreach strategy possible after a confrontation.

Legitimacy implies product acceptance not only from the targeted consumer but also other societal stakeholders concerned with the safety and equity of the consumption in the emerging country, especially when regulations are not well-defined and/or implemented. The two kinds of societal stakeholders which are likely to monitor MNEs are public agencies and civil society groups. Public agencies will be concerned about the quantity, quality, technology or price of the innovation to be introduced. Civil society and NGOs may help the MNE act as citizen watchdogs for the environment and vulnerable communities.

Theoretical constructs have been developed in this paper on the sources of challenges in new product introduction, the types of challengers and the components of the firm’s legitimacy construction strategy and its implementation through an outreach strategy.