Ethical Issues in Cross-National Alliances: A Managerial Perspective

Technological, ideological and economic forces of convergence are increasingly shaping a new era of globalization through cross-national business alliances. These alliances range from short-term project-focused collaborations to long-term joint ventures or strategic alliances. In many countries, governments are becoming directly or indirectly involved as partners of such alliances or through their role in establishing the regulatory regime that guides them. International business alliances have become imbedded in the ideas of market reform now in progress in many previously centrally controlled economies. A leading scholar summarizes this recent alliance phenomenon as follows: