Global Management: Governance and Strategy of Apple Inc. Operations

This case study examines how governance and strategy affect Apple Inc.'s international operations, focusing on its business units in China and Europe. The study analyzes the impact of international laws, particularly those related to taxation and labor, on Apple's performance. It highlights instances where governance issues, such as tax penalties in Europe and labor law violations in China, have negatively impacted the company. The analysis includes a comparison of the challenges faced in each region and proposes solutions for Apple to effectively manage these issues. The study emphasizes the need for proactive evaluation of requirements and increased employee awareness to minimize violations and ensure efficient operations. The study draws upon academic research to support its findings and recommendations.

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How governance and strategy are capable of affecting Apple Inc. operation across different
countries
Introduction
Apple Inc. is an international company whose primary focus has majorly been
concentrated across different international markets. Apple Inc. sells a variety of its products to
different markets that are strategically situated in various countries. Moreover, through the help
of various accessible stores together with merchandising outlets, Apple Inc. has been in a
position of trading a variety of its goods together with intermediary stocks (Baecker and Small,
2016). Interestingly, it is also connected to a range of business units that have been placed across
different countries to make sure that various customers across the world are easily accessed
within the shortest time possible by providing them with the necessary goods and services that
are of their preference (Battour and Ismail, 2016). On the other hand, a variety of Apple Stores
are capable of trading computer produces within the boundaries of the state and several other
creative markets that exist around its topographical divisions. Some of the two major countries
where Apple Inc. has been able to set up its business units are China and Europe.
How issues related to governance and strategy are likely to affect Apple Inc.
The high performance of Apple Inc. is likely to be connected to its level of effectiveness when it
comes to addressing a variety of external factors across different macro-environments that are
associated with the company (Miller et al., 2015). Issues related to globalization normally come
with different aspects of business internationalization. As a result, when any business engages in
any business that takes part in international trading, the business is likely to carry out operations
in different countries, which normally tend to have various jurisdictions as far as issues about

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laws are concerned. As a result, the mandate of an organization like Apple Inc. is to make sure
that it fully abides by those laws and in case of any violation, there will be an act of prosecution
that will be taken into consideration, or even the entire business can be shut down within a given
region where the organization has decided to expand its branch (Hossain et al., 2016).
International laws that normally emerge due to governance are capable of either promoting or
dismantling Apple Inc.'s business operations, depending on how the organization reacts to them.
Some of the International taxation laws that usually emerge due to governance issues have
always gone the extra mile to affect Apple's performance in different ways (Mudambi and Puck,
2016). On the other hand, various laws are widely accepted at the international level by almost
all countries where a good number of these laws were implemented to ensure that the rights of
every employee are adequately protected and also going as far as making sure that their
surrounding work environment is adequately protected (Jang, Lee and Suh, 2016). Under various
circumstances, Apple Company has always found itself in a series of conflicts with such types of
laws, most so when engaging with their respective employees. These usually are worst
encounters, which make it more difficult for the organization to defend itself bust; instead, its
reputation of what usually ends up being tarnished under different circumstances. Since Apple, at
some point, is not always familiar with all the governance laws that have been implemented
within a given country, it normally finds itself being subjected to heavy fines most so in areas
where specific laws have been violated. These fines usually end up subjecting the organization to
severe loss since they have to pay vast amounts of money to keep themselves safe from such acts
(Schneiker et al., 2016).

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How strategy and governance issues impact on Apple Inc. through its business Units
situated in China and Europe
Since various countries are always governed by a series of different laws. This has made
the strategy, and governance issues impact differently on Apple Inc., depending on the regions
where it has decided to base its business units. A good example can be viewed from what Apple
Inc. has been able to encounter within the areas of China and Europe. Different types of
international taxation laws have been in the position of imposing a lot of adverse effects on the
performance of Apple Inc. way back in 2016. The European court decided to issue various orders
to Apple Company, where it directed the organization to make payments of close to $14.5 billion
of tax penalty (Chen and Ann, 2016). The court was able to hold that the government of the Irish
was engaged in violating international tax law, where it found itself in a position of meddling
different tax laws to favor Apple Company, which made the organization pay less tax to the
government. Form the Incident. The tax laws were in a position of reducing various operations of
Apple Inc. in the international business since it brings on board a high probability of the
organization suffering vast amounts of financial losses. Strategy and governance issues within
the European boundaries, most so in terms of the tax laws, tend to have the ability to limit
various operating activities that are attached to Apple Inc. (Chang and Tsai, 2016).
Governance and strategy issues have also been able to take a different direction within
the Chinese boundaries where Apple Inc. has found itself in a vast range of situations being
affected negatively in very many occasions; there exist different types of labor laws in China
where most of these laws are being put into consideration due to various forms of governance.
Aforementioned, they are always implemented to ensure that the right of each employee is well-
protected at all times. On various occasions, China has always found itself being affected

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negatively most, so when engaging with different employees. Way back in 2012, one of Apple's
industry outlets that is strategically situated in China was reported to have engaged a variety of
minor workers where it employed a variety of children together with students in their factories,
which were totally against the labor laws of China (Gehani, 2016). As a result, the violation of
this governance laws was able to lead towards the ruining of Apple's reputation across various
regions, and this emerged as one of the major impacts that the organization had to face in relation
to the governance and strategy issues. This also led to the organization being fined huge amounts
of money for going angst the documented governing laws.
Proposed solution
Dealing with governance and strategic issues isn't an easy task as it might look. Still,
when appropriate strategies are put into place, the final results can emerge to be very interesting
since it will bring on board an efficient mode of operation. For Apple Inc. to be in a position of
correctly dealing with strategy and governance issues across different countries, there is the need
to carry out a precise evaluation of all the requirements that are needed of any business
organization, be it a local one or even an international one. Through this, it will be much easy to
develop a clear understanding of all these issues without encountering any challenges or even
difficulties. Apple Inc. should also be in a position of creating high levels of awareness across all
its employees who are situated in different regions in order to make sure that they are able to
have a clear understanding of various governance and strategic issues in their respective areas of
operation. This will further minimize the violations of various laws that have been set up by
different countries.

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