Simple Touch Footwear Simple Touch Footwear, an American Company That Specializes in Manufacturing

Simple Touch Footwear
Simple Touch Footwear, an American company that specializes in manufacturing shoes for women, has been producing shoes in the United States and selling them in foreign countries. Carla, the company's operations VP, feels that they should purchase a company in India to produce and market shoes to the Asian market. Carla argues that Simple Touch Footwear can get all the necessary personnel from headquarters to run the Indian operation so that tight control can be maintained. However, Nataryan, the marketing director born in India, argues that given the cultural differences, the company should hire only Indian nationals for the Indian subsidiary. Jerry, the company CEO, feels that Simple Touch Footwear should evolve into a company with a more geocentric attitude by hiring and developing the best people from all over the world.
-Refer to Simple Touch Footwear. If Simple Touch Footwear buys the Indian company, it would move to the ____ stage of the internationalization process.

A) joint venture
B) exporting
C) direct foreign investment
D) cross-border merger
E) licensing