Valerie Berset-Price

Wal-Mart is making the headlines with the FCPA corruption case it faces in Mexico. But anyone who has been on the ground trying to close business in countries such as Mexico, India, China, Russia, Venezuela, Nigeria and so forth knows corruption is a way of life.

Corruption is so...

It is true that when it comes to international business and cultural intelligence, I specialize in pointing out what our nation tends to do wrong. Today will be different, ladies and gentlemen. Today, we will take a ride on the positive side of things because I was fed a lot...

On April 16, the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Possten announced that two Chinese competitors have considered Vestas, a large wind turbine manufacturer headquartered in Sweden, for acquisition. Upon reception of the news, Vestas' shares, listed on the NASDAQ, rose by 9.3 percent.

A few minutes earlier, Alan Weiss, a consulting guru,...

Not a week goes by without reading about a natural disaster, a coup d'état, a kidnapping, a plane crash, or a terrorist attack. We less often hear about infectious diseases such as malaria or dengue fever, or road and work accidents that take the lives of employees while abroad.

Perhaps it's due to the fact that my home base is located on the West Coast of the United States, at the mouth of the Pacific Rim, but I noticed in dealing with new and aspiring exporters that most of them want to sell their products/services to the People's Republic...

Virtual interactions have gained a lot of traction in the past five years, and nowadays companies heavily rely on them to communicate internally with employees scattered all around the world. Some even use virtual communication in an attempt to forge international relationships when venturing into a new region. Virtual interactions...

President Obama said it again in his State of the Union Address: the National Export Initiative is still high on the administration's agenda. While this is great news, I wish more would be done to equip new exporters toward best international business practices. In the international arena, everything differs from...

It's very common in the United States for companies to entrust management of their international department to someone who knows how to manage money. More often than not, that person has no international business experience and as such does not understand what type of expenses are necessary for international sales...

For American companies of all sizes, 2012 will be remembered as the year that forced them to enter the international chase for market shares. While this should be perceived as a positive action, I foresee a problem that too many of my clients can't pinpoint: their lack of international reflex.