LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
Nature and Culture
Consultants frequently complain about family based companies, because they obey emotional patterns and their hierarchies respond to the exit and emergence of new generations -not to competence- with the aggravating factor that all the family members act as if they own the company, paying little attention to most advice. The situation gets complicated for business advisors because over 90% of Guatemalan companies are family based. But, which problems are we concretely talking about? And, on the other hand, what are the advantages of such structures? Discover the answer to these and other questions in the Cover Story.
"Everything is always in danger", states the philosopher Wolfgang Pauser in reference to a problem that "eco-fundamentalists" often face, for the variety of nature, but also culture, has resulted from the dynamism of change and improvement, not from conservation; isn't this what sustenance and sustainability establish? The case of Forestal Simpson allows us to reflect on this issue, for its strategy is considered one of the world's most advanced; isn't this what sustenance and sustainability establish? Nature and culture, for better or for worse, are a non-divisible binomial.
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February, 1997