McDonald’s is one of the world’s best-known brands: The company has approximately 30,000 restaurants located in more than 100 countries and serves 47 million customers every day. McDonald’s opened its first international restaurant in Japan in 1971. Its Golden Arches are featured prominently in two former bastions of communism: Puskin Square in Moscow and Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China. What strategy has McDonald’s used to achieve such visibility? For this exercise, each group will be asked to conduct some background research on the firm and then make a brief presentation to identify the international strategy (i.e., global, multidomestic, or transnational) McDonald’s is implementing.

Individual

Use the Internet to find examples of menu variations in different countries. How much do menu items differ for a McDonald’s in the United States from other locations outside the United States?

Groups

Review the characteristics of global, multidomestic, and transnational strategies. Conduct additional research to assess what strategy best describes the one McDonald’s is using. Prepare a flip chart with a single page of bullet points to explain your reasoning.

Whole Class

Each group should have 5–7 minutes to explain its reasoning. Following Q&A for each group, ask class members to vote for the respective strategy choices.