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The aim of this paper is to create a country‐level measure of tolerance and to test the relationships between this measure of country‐level tolerance and percentage of talented workers, economic development, and competitiveness.

A country‐level measure of tolerance for 62 countries is created using responses from the World Values Survey. In particular, four survey responses which closely mirror the traditional definitions of tolerance are considered in the creation of the index. To test the relationships between country‐level tolerance and percentage of talented workers, economic development, and competitiveness, a series of hypotheses tests are conducted using the Spearman and Pearson correlation coefficients.

The results suggest that more tolerant countries tend to attract more net migrants, have a greater concentration of talented workers, higher levels of economic development, and are more competitive.

While, the results of this analysis suggest that tolerance is an important factor for economic prosperity, it should be noted that tolerance alone cannot foster development. Many other factors have a significant effect on economic prosperity and while tolerance is found to be a significant factor, a more tolerant environment alone will not create economic gains.

Global companies needing to attract talented workers should develop policies and work environments which encourage acceptance and tolerance for differences.

This paper provides a measure of country‐level tolerance for 62 countries and establishes the value of tolerance in regard to economic prosperity. This study has value to researchers studying tolerance at the country‐level and to managers of global companies.

In today's global economy, a country's level of competitiveness has emerged as an important policy tool for business leaders and the impact of many economic and institutional “hard” factors on competitiveness have been studied. The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact that diversity, a “soft” factor, has on a country's level of competitiveness.

Using a sample of 102 countries, a multiple regression analysis is performed in which the relationship between a country's competitiveness, as proxied by the global competitiveness index, and diversity, as proxied by ethnic, linguistic, and religious diversity, are tested while controlling for other factors known to affect competitiveness. Further, a cluster analysis is performed in an effort to illuminate global patterns in competitiveness.

The results indicate that greater levels of ethnic diversity negatively and significantly affect a country's competitiveness, but greater levels of linguistic diversity positively and significantly affect competitiveness while religious diversity has no effect.

The reasons behind for the analysis results still need further research. For example, why do greater levels of linguistic diversity positively affect country competitiveness?

The IMF, World Bank, and other investors of capital need to understand whether diversity will help or hinder aid and loan programs and corporations need to consider diversity when conducting global business and foreign investment.

This study is the first to examine the relationship between diversity and country‐level competitiveness and has value to global business managers and investors.

Farmers’ markets in the United States are structured in various ways. Even those once‐or‐twice‐a‐week markets that remain outside of the mass production and distribution system by requiring that all goods sold be produced by the seller take two distinct forms. The varieties of produce sold, the number of choices offered customers, the prices charged, the age and income expectations of the sellers, the rules the sellers obey and the role of the sellers in writing and enforcing those rules are consistent within each type of informal, American farmers’ markets but are quite different between the two types.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the underlying differences in European Union (EU) country approaches to corporate governance and business ethics given the conformity imposed by the EU's recent standardization directives.

The authors conducted a multivariate statistical analysis, involving a two‐stage procedure where hierarchical and non‐hierarchical methods are used in tandem, using data from the 27 EU countries and 38 factors from the economic freedom of the world (EFW) index. This method is suitable for structured statistical data and allows for identification of groups that share similar characteristics – in this case among 38 criteria.

Despite the call for standardization by the EU's Transparency Directive, countries within the EU are adapting their governance and ethics practices, according to their own technical, cultural, and political process, creating unintended changes to the directive, especially in the implementation phase. The paper finds that in countries representative of four different clusters derived from the 27 countries making up the EU, specifically Sweden, Spain, Bulgaria, and Greece, have chosen to significantly adapt their ethics and governance protections to their specific context. While these alterations may serve to inhibit the goals envisioned by the convergence and standardization of the EU's directives, they may also present some improvements as well.

The paper provides empirical support for the comparative governance perspective at the cross‐cultural level for differences in the implementation practices of governance and business ethics across a representative set of four clusters within the 27 EU countries. This paper suggests new avenues of future research for institutional perspectives of corporate governance by suggesting that surface level conformity is only part of the story masking important underlying differences.

The paper offers insights for policy makers interested in enhancing the efficacy of corporate governance regimes across diverse regions such as the EU such that allowing for localization may come at the expense of standardization and comparison, foreign investment, job creation and other intended benefits of such policy initiatives but may also create opportunities for improvements to governance models.

The paper presents a unique cluster analysis based on the 38‐factors used in the EFW index. As such, the authors provide an alternative categorization of countries from previous research in an attempt to capture the current state of corporate governance and business ethics in four detailed case studies in order to move beyond comparisons of two countries which, to date, have dominated the governance research landscape.