One thing that we need to remember is that successful project execution is not always the end goal, from a corporations standpoint, the end goal is the best way to secure financial revenue and fulfill the commitments made to make that money. In some of the cases listed above the project can be scrapped altogether and a new more encompassing scope project can begin. In this case the original data collected and analyzed is not lost and depending on what phase of the project you are on, you may be able to continue with the old project task but simply adding in more tasks to supplement the new requirements. In this case you will “finish” the original project on time and be part way through the “second project” that was mushed together with the original.
Take the example above about the product being in the US and Japan, if you had already entered the execution phase of the project then continue with the execution for the US since there is no logical way upper-management will delay the release of a product in one country so they can release it in two simultaneously. The rate critical step in this case will be Japan.
Scope creep isn’t always a bad thing so long as your metric isn’t the number of perfectly executed under budget ahead of schedule projects you have completed (that is important though right :3). The one to be cautious about is tunnel visioning on the new components of the scope and overlooking/diverting your attention from the original components of the project assuming that that is already taken care of.