Redefining the global triad

Describes how the international business system has undergone dramatic changes since Vernon’s life cycle model in 1966 which postulated that international corporations could sell product sequentially ‐ first in the USA, then in Europe, and later in Japan. Other parts of the world would then receive the product after it had been sold in these three major world markets. Ohmae helped to develop the concept of a global economic triad in 1985, and the fact that products may be sold simultaneously in the three triad regions of the world: the USA, Western Europe and Japan. Believes that this traditional triad view of global competition is inappropriate in today’s world for two reasons. First, in today’s global environment, an important role is played by the type of capitalism, or “business system” that countries or regions follow. For example, there is an Anglo‐Saxon approach to business followed in countries such as the USA and the UK, versus a communitarian approach which is followed in Germany, and many of the other Western European economies. Second, the “emerging” regions of the world, in areas such as Asia and Eastern Europe, also need to be included in the analysis of global competition in the 1990s and beyond. Redefines the traditional global economic triad definition made famous by Ohmae in 1985 and further reinforced recently by Thurow in 1992 that takes into account these two points.