Last Week You Attended a Series of Lectures at the Local

question 9

Essay

Last week you attended a series of lectures at the local university in which the speakers were discussing the role of corporations (such as yours) overseas. The first lecturer discussed the role of MNEs over the years as instruments of national power for the country in which they were based and discussed instances in which the firms became involved in local politics. The speaker condemned such companies as imperialists for attempting to impose U.S. values on foreign nations. The last speaker in the series argued that MNEs have a responsibility to identify injustice and violation of human rights in the nations where they operate and to use either persuasion or economic pressure to bring about change. Whose advice will you follow?

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Definitions:

Annual Dividend

The sum of all dividends a shareholder gets from a company over the course of a year.

Dividend Increases

An action taken by a company's board of directors to raise the amount of money paid to shareholders in the form of dividends, usually reflecting the company's strong financial health and positive future earnings outlook.

Rate Of Return

The financial result, be it profit or loss, of investing over a certain length of time, depicted as a percentage of the initial investment value.

Preferred Stock

A class of ownership in a corporation with a higher claim on assets and earnings than common stock, usually with fixed dividends.