izations were ideally suited to the economic environment of the era after World War II. Giants like Ford and General Electric fed an insular and hungry customer base that had a seemingly unrelenting appetite, starved by the Great Depression and the war (Beese, 1995, 133).
The more recent developments in the world environment, however, have changed the way these companies relate to the world environment:
With customers no longer in fragmented markets, inefficiencies once tolerated can no longer be ignored. Companies that are able to respond quickly to changing market demands and deliver quality products at reasonable prices face eroding market share as savvy consumers choose the "better mousetrap" from a wide range of international providers (Beese, 1995, 133).
These same forces are affecting the financial markets. U.S. capital markets have developed a well-deserved reputation for fairness, depth, and liquidity that has attracted investment capital from at home and abroad and that have provided the fuel for company growth throughout the post-World War II era. The preeminence of these markets is no longer assured as the new century dawns, however:
The forces of technological change, international competition, and more demanding consumers have combined to create a global marketplace for capital in which the U.S. market now competes (Beese, 1995, 134).
One of the reasons for the increasing globalization of financial markets has been efforts to create broad regional markets with an integrated policy benefiting member states; one of the largest and first of these efforts was the Euromarket developed around 1992. This was actually the culmination of a lengthy effort beginning decades earlier. The European Communities were established after World War II with the intention of preventing tensions that might develop between the major Western European nations. It was believed that certain commonalities existed and could be a...