Abstract
Western business strategies are often held as models for emerging countries. Despite General Electric being the largest worldwide conglomerate, such success stories have become rather rare nowadays in the United States and Europe, although this is not true in Japan for cultural and historical reasons. For this reason, the dismantling of most conglomerates from the developed countries is for many a path to follow in the emerging markets. This belief was reinforced by the financial crisis in Asia and Latin American as multi-lateral financial institutions and consultants pressed for a closer convergence between first and third-world business models, to improve efficiency and productivity. The inefficiency resulting from the family-controlled enterprise model are the arguments used by proponents of this convergence.
