Nationalism, royalism and business

In an article a couple of weeks ago, Does it pay for bosses to embrace nationalism?, The Economist wrote about research on nationalism and companies. While much of the article was about China and its nationalism, we could not help thinking about Thailand and the firms that emphasize royalism as part of conservative Thailand’s nationalism.

One set of  researchers found evidence that for some firms, “a greater sense of national mission was associated with less commitment to corporate social responsibility efforts related to employees.”

Another researcher found “that more intense nationalistic language is associated with greater levels of tax avoidance.” The researcher” speculates that chest-beating firms may have closer ties to the government, more sense of entitlement because of their contribution to domestic employment or less fear of reputational harm from paying less tax.”

 

It would be neat to see similar research on nationalist royalism and the tendency to screw workers and avoid tax. That said, we could also think about not just avoiding tax, but avoiding the law more generally. There is also research that could explain if  nationalist royalist companies get more government contracts.