Indian youth find MNCs better than domestic firms

Posted : January 19 2010

New Delhi: The Indian youth seem to believe that multinational companies (MNCs) are more value-driven in their approach than domestic small and medium businesses, reports Financial Chronicle. On the other hand, the global youth seem to put more trust in small and medium businesses as opposed to MNCs, according to a study conducted by the World Economic Forum (WEF). The WEF report, 'Faith and the Global Agenda: Values for the Post-Crisis Economy,' has surveyed over 130,000 respondents in 10 of the group of 20 (G-20) large economies. The survey was conducted over social network site Facebook among respondents, most of whom were in the age group of 18-30. Two-thirds of the people surveyed believe that the economic crisis was a crisis of values. Most people chose honesty, integrity and transparency (40 percent) and respecting others' rights, as the most important value in their personal and professional lives. When asked to identify the sectors that based their approach on these values, 40 percent of the respondents voted for small and medium-sized local businesses and 25 percent chose large, global, multinational corporations. However almost 33 percent Indians voted in favour of MNCs while 31 percent considered small businesses to be more value-driven. Infosys board member Mohandas Pai does not agree with the notion that MNCs are more ethical in their approach. "World over, people have more trust in SMEs because MNCs failed globally. As far as India is concerned, I would say that SMEs are equally value-driven," he said. "We Indians have a habit of beating ourselves down. We like to say that others are better than us." "I would call it a crisis of greed," Zensar Technologies CEO Ganesh Natarajan told Financial Chronicle. He agreed that in India, MNCs ranked higher on the value count. "I do agree, MNCs would be more ethically-driven, followed by listed companies. The ethical approach of SMEs depends more on their promoters," he added. "I fully subscribe to the fact that it is a crisis of values," agreed Vijay Thadani, CEO, NIIT. However, when it comes to choosing the more ethically driven sector, he points out, "Circumstances in each social condition are different. You cannot say that small organizations are more ethical in the west than in India. Over there, maybe the small companies are small by choice, its not so here. Moreover, it's not a matter of small and large, it's about what you have and what you need. Maybe, when a poor man is hungry, food would be more important to him than ethics. This is not to say, however, that SMEs work less ethically. It might be that MNCs work more ethically because risks of non-compliance are extremely high," Thadani added.

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Indian youth find MNCs better than domestic firms

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