Elite attitudes toward multinational firms

The future evolution of multinational firms will depend to a large degree on the policy decisions of host nations, made essentially by leadership groups. Thus, knowledge of how elites feel about foreign business firms is a key element in analysis of the outlook for international business. There have been assorted expressions of elite attitudes on multinational firms including official national policies, speeches, and popular writing. But there have been no studies to identify systematically the views of the significant elite groups. To fill this gap, I undertook surveys in Britain and France in late 1970 and Canada in late 1971, results of which are summarized in this article.