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The Impact of the Multinational in the Development: An Ethical Challenge

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Abstract

Multinational enterprises have continued their increase during the last decades. What these companies do and how they do, determines not only the economic development of countries, but also their social and cultural development. This enormous power implies responsibility and new challenges.

If we also take into account the role of multinational enterprises in what has been called sustainable development, we see that their importance is still more decisive.

In order to guide the performances of multinational enterprises that operate in developing countries, several supranational organizations like the ILO, the OECD, the EU and the UN have elaborated some recommendations to unify criteria and to set out some minimum standards to favor an integral development of these countries. In this document we present three of those with the greatest impact and we analyze them from the approach of an ethical sustainable human development.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dpto. Proyectos de Ingeniería, ETSII – Universidad Politécnica, Camino de Vera S/n, E-46022, Valencia

    J. Félix Lozano & Alejandra Boni

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  1. J. Félix Lozano
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  2. Alejandra Boni
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Lozano, J.F., Boni, A. The Impact of the Multinational in the Development: An Ethical Challenge. Journal of Business Ethics 39, 169–178 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1016360823980

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