Pierre-Yves Donzé The Advantage of Being Swiss: Nestlé and Political Risk in Asia during the Early Cold War, 1945–1970 Multinational enterprises faced new political risks after World War II in the context of decolonization and the Cold War. The risks were particularly high in Asia between 1945 and 1970. Although the relevant literature has focused essentially on organizational innovation and strategic choices in explaining how firms dealt with these new political risks, this article explores the informal roles that governments of small, neutral countries played in supporting their multinationals abroad. Looking at the case of Nestlé in Asia, the article argues that the backing of the Swiss federal authorities was crucial for the company to overcome various kinds of risks and ensure a long-term presence in the region. Keywords: political risk, neutrality, Cold War, Asia, Switzerland, Nestlé W hen companies go abroad and organize on a transnational level to become multinational enterprises (MNEs), they face different risks than they usually encounter at home. 1 Political risk includes a broad range of dangers resulting from policies and decisions by governments (protectionism, control of capital, confiscations and nationalizations, and This work was supported by a JSPS Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research, (B) 17H02550. The author thanks Lisane Lavanchy and Marc Perrenoud for their kind support. 1 Geoffrey Jones and Rachael Comunale have, however, recently demonstrated that compa- nies also face political risk at home, particularly in emerging countries. See Jones and Comu- nale, “Business, Governments and Political Risk in South Asia and Latin America since 1970,” Australian Economic History Review 58, no. 3 (2018): 233–64. Business History Review, 2020: page 1 of 25. doi:10.1017/S000768052000029X © 2020 The President and Fellows of Harvard College. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creative- commons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.ISSN 0007- 6805; 2044-768X (Web). terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S000768052000029X Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 118.10.85.171, on 08 Aug 2020 at 23:29:05, subject to the Cambridge Core