New Technology Underlies Air Products' Multinational Stance

Abstract

Those in the chemical industry are accustomed to an international ambience. Science and technology are intrinsically international and multinational, and no industry is more closely wedded to them than the chemical industry. But the demands on multinational operations are greater than ever and this presents new problems that will test the resolve of firms gone multinational. The demands are occasioned by rapid economic expansion in the Pacific, forthcoming economic integration in Western Europe, the economic and political shakedown in Eastern Europe, and growing expectations of the Third World. Although popular interest in multinational industry is largely confined to politics and the gyrations of the stock markets, officials of multinational companies have become ever more keyed to generation and development of the new technology necessary for corporate growth. One firm that exemplifies the new wave of multinational chemical companies is Air Products & Chemicals. Now 50 years old, the Allentown, Pa.-base...