FAMILY MATTERS Available to Purchase

Recently some of the most significant work in competitiveness studies has investigated the human side of economics. Concepts such as trust, fairness, and justice have emerged as important components of the healthy functioning of businesses, for both national and multinational corporations (MNCs). In fact, it may well be the case that MNCs have taken the lead in this arena. Ethical and religious issues are most clearly highlighted when cultural differences come into play. A corporate monoculture does not need to examine closely the basic propositions, which all its members share—or are assumed to share. But when a corporation must take into consideration the differing needs and expectations of many of the members of its corporate family, it can, and in fact must, begin to reconsider some of the basic premises upon which that corporation was founded or has been operating. This is manifestly a healthy situation, not only for the new “family members” when, through growth, acquisition, or merger, a national corporation becomes multinational, but also for all members of the original business.