Global Business Environments

Researchers have emphasized either the divergence or the similarities of global business environments. For example, John Meyer and his associates’ research on world societies (the Stanford School of sociological institutions) has yielded many insights into the global cultural scripts that rationalize corporate and national behaviors and make them overtly similar. These researchers have contended that a global corporate organization has arisen without national distinctiveness and local rooting: Managers graduate from homogeneous business programs, attend the same international high-profile meetings, and [Page 1594]hire the same consultants. Governments and multinational corporations’ (hereafter referred to as multinationals) rationalized activities have acquired self-directed momentum, transcending local economics and politics. World society encompasses structural similarities of form without equal outcomes: Purpose decouples from structure, intentions from results. Conformity emanates from ...