MNCs: Perception and Reality
In “MNCs, Social Responsibility and Conflict” Juliette Bennett writes:
“The international business community will increasingly need to promote greater economic inclusion and social justice in its operations, or it will be blamed for contributing to the conditions that lead to violent conflict. That may not actually be the case, but the perception is a fact of life in our rapidly shrinking world” (http://info.worldbank.org/etools/docs/library/57510/bennett_article.pdf)p. 410.
Should MNCs, or any actors, be expected to act on the basis of perceptions, even if it “may not actually be the case” that the perception is correct?
ng the most important economy in the world would fail to grasp the basic principles behind the globalization of production? In case you missed it, “the Donald” decided to observe Martin Luther King day by… well, not observing Martin Luther King day, and attacking an American icon of a different sort: Apple. “We’re going to get Apple to build their damn computers in this country instead of other countries,” Trump yelled to his Liberty University audience, and in one sentence demonstrated a unique understanding of both the concept and actual words “free enterprise.” Trump is not the first to jump on the end-outsourcing bandwagon to score political points, but his apparent failure to recognize that the very existence of companies like Apple—and empires like his own—depends on the existence of a profit maximizing, globally mobile manufacturing system is rather like FIFA head Sepp Blatter failing to understand that he could not lead a war on corruption. Too bad FIFA can only issue 8 year bans to its own president.