McDonald’s Corporation

This paper introduces an international corporation that is called McDonald’s Corporation. It presents some research about this company, its overview, the types of market systems and types of legal systems, some political risks for the countries in which the company has a presence, the company’s code of conduct, etc.
To start with, McDonald’s Corporation is an American corporation, the world’s largest fast-food chain until 2010. By the end of 2010, the company takes the second place in the number of restaurants around the world after the restaurant chain Subway. In addition, it is included in the Fortune Global 500.
The company was founded by brothers Dick and Mac McDonald in 1940. This is not superfluous to mention that the first restaurant was opened in San Bernardino, California. In 1948, the principles of the concept of “fast food” were first formulated in the world.
In 1954, Ray Kroc purchased the McDonald brothers’ right to act as an exclusive agent for the franchise. He opened his first McDonald’s in the town of Des Plains, Illinois in 1955. In 1961, all rights to the company were fully controlled by Ray Kroc.
Following 2010, the corporation has 32,737 restaurants worldwide. “The company operates through five subsidiaries (structured on a geographic basis): McDonald’s USA, McDonald’s Europe, McDonald’s AMEA (Asia, Middle East and Africa), McDonald’s Latin America and McDonald’s International” (“MarketWatch,” 2005, p. 26).
As it was mentioned above, the corporation has a lot of fast food restaurants in the whole world. Thus, let us take and identify the types of market systems and types of legal systems that exist in the USA where the corporation operates. This is a widespread fact that there are three main types of market systems that are: a free market system, command, and mixed one. The company can collide with different market systems, such as socialism, capitalism and communism. Identifying each type of market systems, it is possible to say that according to a free market system, the state does not play a particularly important role in resource allocations. Households with private firms make decisions on the rules of distribution of goods and available resources. The second type of market system is opposite to the first one. Here the government takes absolutely all the decisions regarding the distribution, consumption, and production of goods. In a mixed system, goods production is usually based on a private ownership of resources. Consequently, the USA has a free market system and 49 states and federal courts apply the legal systems that are related to English common law. The State of Louisiana is related to French and Spanish civil law. In the USA, the modern legal system is based upon such legal and political principles: the judicial and constitutional review, federalism and the separation of powers. Since different countries have their own laws, respectively, they will affect the company’s operations differently. Moreover, various cultural traditions and different practices should be taken into consideration.