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Unwanted Attention: Swiss Multinationals and the Creation of International Corporate Guidelines in the 1970s

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2020

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Abstract

During the last decade, we have seen an increased opposition to globalization. Within this wave of criticism, firms and more specifically multinational corporations have been major targets, accused of multiple wrongdoings, such as social dumping, fiscal evasion, job cuts, trade deficits, abuses of power, and environmental damages. In many respects, this debate echoes the one that took place during the 1970s with respect to oil shocks, de-industrialization, and imperialism. At that time, several international organizations, such as the OECD, ECOSOC, ILO, and the European Community started to address the issue of multinationals and international investments, and advocated for the creation of guidelines to regulate their activities. The following paper explores the reactions of Swiss multinationals to these attempts, as well as their strategies for protecting their latitude in conducting business. Relying on archival material of the Swiss Union of Commerce and Industry and of the Federal Archives, this paper shows how the biggest companies in the pharmaceutical, machine, and food processing industries—all of them still being global players —decided to create a task force to deal with these emerging regulations at the international level.

Keywords

multinationalsguidelinesbusiness historylobbyingSwitzerland
Type
Research Article
Information
Business and Politics , Volume 22 , Special Issue 4: Multinational Corporations and the Politics of International Trade , December 2020 , pp. 587 - 611
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of V.K. Aggarwal

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Footnotes

†

The author would like to thank Mary O'Sullivan, Frédéric Varone, Youssef Cassis, Neil Rollings, Samuel Beroud, Jamieson Myles, Matthieu Leimgruber, Norma Lanciotti, and Rami Kaplan for their suggestions on earlier version of this article. She also appreciated comments she received from the participants of the workshop Multinational Corporations and the Politics of International Trade, Florence, April 2019, organized by Grace Ballor and Aydin Yildirim. The author, however, bears full responsibility for the content and the conclusions of the paper.

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