Multinational Corporation - business enterprise with manufacturing, sales, or service subsidiaries in one or more foreign countries, also known as a transnational or international corporation. These corporations originated early in the 20th century and proliferated after World War II.
Typically, a multinational corporation develops new products in its native country and manufactures them abroad, often in Third World nations, thus gaining trade advantages and economies of labor and materials. Almost all the largest multinational firms are American, Japanese, or West European. Such corporations have had worldwide influence—over other business entities and even over governments, many of which have imposed controls on them. During the last two decades of the 20th century many smaller corporations also became multinational, some of them in developing nations. Proponents of such enterprises maintain that they create employment, create wealth, and improve technology in countries that are in dire need of such development. Critics, however, point to their inordinate political influence, their exploitation of developing nations, and the loss of jobs that results in the corporations' home countries.
Multinational corporations (MNCs) play a critical role in the global economy. By most estimates, production by multinational enterprises now accounts for over one-fourth of the world's output and one-third of world trade. Moreover, many scholars believe that the investments of multinationals, commonly known as foreign direct investment (FDI), have beneficial effects on economic growth, transferring technology and managerial expertise as well as providing capital.
As consumers in today’s world, some of us have a wide choice of goods and services before us. The latest model ...