Downsizing through corporate layoffs, plant closures and mergers that relinquish small businesses changes the face of the American nation and ultimately serves to harm employees. The American dream used to encompass promoting the interests of workers and employees interested in realizing financial opportunities and long term employment. Today employees have nothing they can rely on. In the world of corporate America, only the fittest will survive. Most American employees realize they have few choices when it comes to job security, regardless of how far up the food chain they are within an organization. .

             Loyalty is a double edged sword however. Companies are just as likely to be disloyal to employees as employees are to be disloyal to their employers. Everyone is looking out for their own self interests it seems when it comes to employment in the Western world. Deal & Kennedy (2000) argue that the "biggest single influence on a company's culture is the broader social and economic environment the company does business in" (21). This suggests that corporate culture results from what efforts a company engages in within a socio-economic context, thus if selling is necessary for success a company will sell, and if downsizing is necessary for success a company will layoff employees (Deal & Kennedy, 2000). This suggests that companies will engage in whatever means necessary to realize an end result. Businesses, even those that promote the collective welfare of the employees working with them and their individual careers, must not deny the socio economic factors that ultimately affect their success (Deal & Kennedy, 2000). In today's global marketplace, more and more companies are realizing that to remain competitive and rise above the rest they must continue to serve global customers in as cost effective a manner as possible. .

             Heckscher (1995) notes that in the last two decades managers within companies have been under attack, "widely condemned as bureaucratic deadwood and unproductive overhead" (3).