1 Million Pages

A leading publisher in both print and online of trade specialist information, Business Monitor International (BMI) was established in 1984 with a global perspective. Its service is updated not just quarterly, monthly or weekly but even daily. They cover a wide range of issues such as political risk, financial status, macroeconomic performance, industry sectors and operational environment.

Clients and subscribers of BMI in over 125 countries comprise of huge academe, institutions, corporations, multinationals and government. It is based in London which is recognized for its in- depth news analysis and economic forecasts. As a matter of fact, they received the Queens Award for Export Achievement in 1997. Since then, they have continually expanded where anybody can just avail of their CD- ROM which contains a research database of 150, 000 top executives at 60, 000 pioneering conglomerations that have stories of successful strategic approaches in their respective fields.

Services
The emerging markets online feature of Business Monitor International offers an original, same- day content and interpretation of key commerce developments across the world. There currency reports that is supported by BMIs wealth of country data from its proprietary databases. It then produces a unique and coherent examination underwritten by a 20- year lineage of specialists. It is a highly- functional and cost- effective answer to the information needs of both single and multiple users that are based in Europe, North America and elsewhere. BMI is fully- customized to correspond the requirements of a specific region.

Another exclusive from Business Monitor International is a 20- page weekly concise on equities, forex and bonds that are dependent upon by investment professionals. Called as emerging markets monitor, it deal with Asia Pacific, Latin America, Central Europe, Middle East and South Africa. It is sensitive to market sentiment, clear recommendations for equities and fixed income exchange, carefully prepared by BMIs treasury team. It consists the likes of ABN Amro, Bankers Trust, Chase Securities, Deutsche Bank, HSBC, ING Barings, Jardine Fleming, Lehamn Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Nomura International, Standard Chartered, Templeton Emerging Markets and UBS Warburg.

Business Monitor International has weekly financial alerts that relies upon by senior experts that evaluate risks and track opinions. It has an up- to- minute news together with attributed insights directly given by Alerts. It also has an explicit terms be it short and medium currency watch backed by fundamentalists. Having a time- sensitive data, it offers a visual method of graphs and charts to emphasize the analysis behind the banner stories.

They have other programs such as regional monthly monitors that has a country-by-country coverage, political review, macroeconomic forecast, market report and environment update. There is also the quarterly country forecasts reports over a three- year horizon that enters into the domestic outlook, external sector and global growth.

Business ethics is not a novel idea. Its just that its one of those things that we conveniently forget when faced with tough choices. But since the Enron and WorldCom scandals of 2002, more and more people in the business world are paying attention to this oft-neglected aspect of business. Especially now with the global marketplace in full swing.

Competition is cutthroat, but this does not mean that we should forget about what we have learned in international business ethics. To address this, many changes were subsequently legislated regarding corporate governance, disclosure and accounting procedures. But more than mere compliance with law, international business ethics requires a major shift in corporate culture.

Today, international business ethics means conducting all aspects of business and dealing with all the stakeholders in an ethical manner. The stakeholders include employees, partners, clients, shareholders, suppliers, the communities, and natural environments in which businesses operate. Thus, the term embraces the concepts of corporate social responsibility (CSR), corporate sustainability, and corporate citizenship.

Below are some links to sites that contain general information on international business ethics and some significant free content that may be of interest to students, researchers, practitioners, and the general public.

Business Ethics
Access: Web-Miner.com/BusEthics.htm

Although not recently updated, this site is the perfect starting point for those seeking information on international business ethics. The site was created by Librarian Sharon Stoerger and contains useful annotated links to international business ethics resources organized by type. Some of the resources you will find include articles and publications, case studies, corporate codes of ethics, professional organizations and associations, centers, and other resources.

The Canadian Resource for Business Ethics
Access: BusinessEthics.ca

If you are looking for links to sites of Canadian and business ethics organizations, then BusinessEthics.ca is the place to go. The site is administered by a philosophy professor at Saint Marys University in Canada, Chris MacDonald. As part of the larger EthicsWeb.ca site, BusinessEthics.ca contains case studies, articles, and consultants on international business ethics.

CSR Directory
Access: CSRWire.com/Directory/

This is a directory that contains contact information and links to more than 1,000 organizations concerned with CSR and international ethics. It can be found though the CSRWire website and is searchable by organization name, type, contact name, and location. In addition to the directory, the CSRWire website also offers corporate CSR reports, news releases, job opportunities, and events.

Business & Human Rights Resource Centre
Access: Business-HumanRights.org/Home

A partner of the Amnesty International and several academic institutions, the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre is an independent, international, nonprofit organization that works to promote greater awareness of issues relating to business and human rights. Here, you can find information on thousands of companies, more than 160 countries, and 150 issues including international business ethics.

Let me ask you a question that may not be so simple: Why are you in business?

Of course, there are probably dozens of reasons you could point to….
- serve others
- contribute to the greater good
- meet a need that’s not being met
- grow your financial well-being
- express your purpose
- prove to the world that you can

Wait - whoa - what was that last one? Take another look…

That’s right. Although most people wouldn’t admit it (even if they were conscious of it), there is often a hidden motivation that accompanies our most altruistic intentions. The desire to prove that we are enough.

Where does it come from?
Often, it comes from early childhood conclusions. Something happens, and you make your conclusions and assumptions about what it means. Maybe you have an older sibling, and were always trying to measure up (that’s me). Or, you were an older sibling, and were always trying to recapture the attention you felt you lost when the little squirt was born (that’s my older brother).

Of course, it doesn’t have to be the result of a sibling relationship, or even anything “negative” at all that kicked off your pattern. Perhaps you were recognized positively for doing well in a school play, or sports event, and somehow you got it wired up that in order to get love and attention, you had to keep performing. And that conclusion has been running you ever since.

Great. Now what?
When you become aware of a previously-hidden intention, chances are pretty high that it casts a shadow over your day, and you’d like to be able to get rid of it. Because trying to serve two masters (your desire to work for both “higher” and “lower” reasons) can really throw you off your groove, toss your productivity in the toilet, and cost you significant amounts of time.

There are, of course, lots of ways to clean your intentions. One of the simplest ways is to take some time to feel the drive you have to do great things with your business. And as you do, let yourself be open to feeling both the altruistic intentions, and the ones that do it to prove something.

Then, once you’re feeling that “yeah, then I’ll be seen as x” intention, ask yourself, “And what if that didn’t happen? What if I didn’t get that payoff?”

That will show you the deficiency you’re trying to compensate for; the conclusion you came to as a kid that you’re trying to avoid, deny, or negate.

And once you see that, what’s going to heal it?
Perspective. No, not your perspective; Divine Perspective. If you could have dealt with this, you would have, long ago.

The only way to truly free yourself of those old conclusions is to go beyond the level of thinking you were at when you thought it (yes, echoes of that famous Einstein quote, “The significant problems we face today cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.”).

Once you can see more than what you saw before, the old conclusions will no longer have such a grip on you.

How?
The best way I’ve found is to engage your sense of connection, i.e. through awakening your heart’s connection to the Divine. Alone, you can only see what you can see. But together with a Higher Perspective, you can see everything you need to.

This can happen through heart-centered meditation (like the Remembrance), by connecting to your heart and feeling the greater, universal presence your heart is naturally connected to. If you’re an “inner wisdom” person, then finding that still center within where you hear that wise, connected voice, is key.

However you get there, get there. And when you’re there, ask to be shown what you couldn’t see before that you need to see.

Example:
When I feel why I’m in business, I get a list of reasons, such as service to others, service to the earth and the Divine, family and financial well-being, etc. And, I feel a place that says, “People will look at me and think I’m great.” (Whoops!)

So I ask myself, “And what if that didn’t happen? What if I didn’t get that payoff?” And what I feel is a strong sense of aloneness, and lack of love. That there isn’t love in this world for me. (Bingo!)

Then, I connect in my heart, and feel the loving presence I’ve come to recognize as the Divine. And, I ask, “What do I need to see that I haven’t seen before?”

And the answer that comes back to me is that this intention is trying to make it so I don’t have to be needy of Divine support; that I can be self-sustaining, sufficient, and powerful in myself. But my heart knows (and it gets reinforced pretty quickly, doing this process) that I’m just human, and without Divine support, I’d be toast.

With that realization comes great relief, relaxation, and a lessening of the desire to prove anything about who I am through my work. What I hear is, “You are what you are because you’ve been made to be that - and no amount of your doing is going to increase, or decrease, that.”

Pretty sweet stuff. In one moment, I’m both sufficient (just because I’m me), and utterly not sufficient, because it’s the Divine support that makes it all happen through me… not little ol’ me, on my own.

And, what does that do for my business? By clearing up the illusions in my intentions for being in business, it helps me realize that I don’t have to do it alone, that I am supported, and I can work from a much greater place of freedom and ease.

The United States is the home -country for the largest amounts of foreign licensing and direct investment. Therefore, its policies understandably arouse some of the major trade unions of such outward moments. One of these critics is organized labor, which argues that foreign production often displaces what would otherwise be US production. For example, big corporations have been criticized because they decided to shift some or all of their production to less costly countries, such as Mexico, because of the NAFTA agreement. Trade unions also cite many examples of highly advanced technology that has been at least partially developed through governmental contracts and then transferred abroad. An example is Boeing’s transfer of aerospace technology to China to produce aircraft parts. According to trade unions, if Boeing did not transfer the technology, China would purchase the products in United States, thus increasing U.S. employment and output.

Closely related to the question of job loss is the question of whether the outsourcing of production puts downward pressure on wages in the home country. On the other hand, there is anecdotal evidence that it does. For example, computer programmers in the United Kingdom, make three to six times, the monthly salary of programmers in India. So the possibility of moving more work to India has caused a recent drag on the real wages of U.K. programmers. On the other hand, there is evidence that moves by companies to lower-wage countries increase the overall home-country demand and wages for skilled labor. This is because the cost savings from producing abroad increase demand for the products produced abroad, such as Nike shoes, thus increasing the need for Nike to hire more managerial personnel in the United States.

Moreover, due to the size of many multinational enterprises (MNEs), there is much concern by trade unions that they will undermine through political means the sovereignty of nation-states. The foremost concern is that an MNE will be used as a foreign-policy instrument of its home-country government. The fact that companies depend primarily on their home countries is illustrated by the realization that from the 100 largest companies in the Fortune 500 list, only 18 have a majority of their assets outside their home-country and very few have a foreigner on their executive board. These companies are most internationalized in terms of their sales; however, fewer than half generate more than half of their sales outside their home markets. Because the home-countries of most MNEs are industrial ones, it is understandable that this concern is taken most seriously in less-developed countries (LDCs). But it is not restricted to them.

Two other sovereignty issues are raised less frequently. One is that the MNE may become independent of both the home and host countries, making it difficult for either country to take actions considered being in its best interests. The second is that the MNE might become so dependent on foreign operations that the host country can use it as a foreign-policy instrument against its home country or another country. Under this sphere of influence, trade unions exercise trade control, by enforcing trade restrictions, antitrust laws, and key sector control measures or even by forming state-owned enterprises. For example, much have been said about the US government’s attempt to apply its trading with the Enemy Act to foreign subsidiaries of US companies, in order to keep them from selling to certain unfriendly countries. Such measures, that restrict free trade and enhance the threat of reducing gains, drive MNEs either to accept the new roles of the global game or in most cases to oppose it.

Contemporary economic models present the typical consumer as deliberative and highly forward-looking, not subject to impulsive behavior. Shopping for a product or a service is seen as an information-gathering exercise in which the buyers look for the best possible deal for products and/or services they have decided to purchase. Consumption choices represent optimizing within an environment of deliberation, control, and long-term planning. Whether such a picture is accurate it would be news (and news of a very bad sort) to a whole industry of advertisers, marketers, and consultants whose research on consumer behavior tells a very different story. Indeed, their findings are difficult to reconcile with the picture of the consumer as highly deliberative and purposive.

Serious empirical investigations suggest that these assumptions do not adequately describe a wide range of consumer behaviors. The simple rational-economic model is reasonable for predicting some fraction of choice behavior for some class of goods -apples versus oranges, milk versus orange juice- but it is inadequate when we are led to more consequential issues like consumption versus leisure, technological products with high symbolic content, fashion, consumer credit, and so on. In particular, it exaggerates how rational, informed, and consistent people are; it overstates their independence. Moreover it fails to address the pressures that consumerism imposes on individuals with respect to available choices and the consequences of various consumption decisions. By researching and understanding those pressures, one may well arrive at very different conclusions about politics and policy.

Corporations know that having a product available where target customers can buy it is essential to their business success. From the introduction of commerce to today’s immense information exchange, markets have always been the primary focus of any sound business plan. That is because markets provide the necessary fuels for any industry to evolve. By consuming a variety of resources and products and having moved beyond basic needs to include luxury items and technological innovations to try to improve efficiency, today’s consumers have created another type of consumer trend; consuming for the sake of consumption.

Such consumption beyond minimal and basic needs is not necessarily a bad thing in and of itself, as throughout history we have always sought to find ways to make our lives a bit easier to live. However, increasingly, there are important issues around consumerism and consumption that need to be understood as they are at the core of many, if not most societies. The impacts of current consumption, positive and negative are very significant to all aspects of our lives, as well as our planet. But equally important to bear in mind in discussing consumption patterns is the underlying system that promotes certain types of consumption and not other types.