Suchergebnisse

Of the forty banks included in the world's largest 500 firms, none operate on a global basis. All but one are heavily dependent on their home region, with an average of 78.3 percent of their sales being intra‐regional. The other bank is European owned but has a majority of its sales in North America, i.e. it is host‐region oriented. The insularity of the world's largest banks is not a sector‐ specific factor only nine of the world's 500 largest firms are global, and the vast majority are like the banks, home‐region based.

A paradox of international business is that the multinational enterprises (MNEs) – which are the agents of international business – largely operate within their home‐base markets in each part of the "triad" of North America, the E.U. and Japan. Here, empirical evidence is presented across the 500 largest MNEs. It shows that even the 20 most "international" MNEs (those with the highest ratio of foreign‐to‐total sales) are mainly home‐triad based in their activities. We conclude that the strategic management of MNEs needs to be regionally focused, not global.

Aim: To record and measure the nature and severity of stigma and discrimination experienced by people during a first episode of schizophrenia and those with a first episode of major depressive disorder. Methods: The Discrimination and Stigma Scale (DISC-12) was used in a cross-sectional survey to elicit service user reports of anticipated and experienced discrimination by 150 people with a diagnosis of first-episode schizophrenia and 176 with a diagnosis of first-episode major depressive disorder in seven countries (Austria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Poland, Romania, Sweden and Turkey). Results: Participants with a diagnosis of major depressive disorder reported discrimination in a greater number of life areas than those with schizophrenia, as rated by the total DISC-12 score ( p = .03). With regard to specific life areas, participants with depression reported more discrimination in regard to neighbours, dating, education, marriage, religious activities, physical health and acting as a parent than participants with schizophrenia. Participants with schizophrenia reported more discrimination with regard to the police compared to participants with depression. Conclusion: Stigma and discrimination because of mental illness change in the course of the mental diseases. Future research may take a longitudinal perspective to better understand the beginnings of stigmatisation and its trajectory through the life course and to identify critical periods at which anti-stigma interventions can most effectively be applied.