International Business And The Future
...with interests in multiple countries. Such firms are sometimes called multinational corporations (MNCs). Well known MNCs include fast food companies McDonald's, vehicle manufacturers such as General Motors and Toyota, consumer electronics companies like LG and Sony, and energy companies such as ExxonMobil and BP. Most of the largest corporations operate in multiple national markets. Increased global competition encourages allocative and productive efficiency.
There are a number of benefits the citizens and firms of a country may enjoy as a result of the existence of MNCs.
• The benefits of specialization
• The benefits of competition
• The benefit of choice
In the traditional world of regions and nation states, information, people, goods, and investment are mobile only to the extent that they are subject to the tyranny of national barriers and geographical differences. Recent new developments in the global economy, however, have obliterated some of these spatial barriers. Scholars have begun to question the effectiveness and eventually, the existence of national boundaries. To them today’s global economy has witnessed the emergence of a borderless world. We have entered into a world in which investment, industry, information flow and individuals move relatively unimpeded across national borders. This so called borderless world has several distinctive tendencies according to Ohmae :
1. Investment is no longer so that capital can flow to places that provide the best opportunities.
2. Revolutions in information and transportation technology have enabled global corporations to operate virtually everywhere in the world without reproducing clones of management structures.
3. Individual consumers are becoming increasingly global in their tastes and orientation.
All these developments have led Ohmae to conclude that ‘for a growing population of firms that...
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