The potential ease with which transnational corporations can relocate their activities gives them great leverage over individual governments. The authors outline the various policies that the world's major economies have adopted to cope with the unique issues created by transnationals. They reveal that there has been a marked contrast in the level of concern about transnationals' activities across the countries studied, and that this has resulted in significantly different approaches towards transnationals.

This volume brings together world experts in international business who offer a commentary on the key activities of transnational corporations including strategy, economic development, government policy, technology and law

Are transnational corporations (TNCs) and foreign direct investment beneficial or harmful to societies around the world? Since the birth of the United Nations more than 60 years ago, these questions have been major issues of interest and involvement for UN institutions. What have been the key ideas generated by the UN about TNCs and their relations with nation-states? How have these ideas evolved and what has been their impact? This book examines the history of UN engagement with TNCs, including the creation of the UN Commission and Centre on Transnational Corporations in 1974, the failed efforts of these bodies to craft a code of conduct to temper the revealed abuses of TNCs, and, with the advent of globalization in the 1980s, the evolution of a more cooperative relationship between TNCs and developing countries, resulting in the 1999 Global Compact.