Transnational Companies (19th-20th centuries) gathers tests which were presented during the fourth convention of the European Business History Association in Bordeaux in September 2000. Most of them come from matured and well-known business historians or business schools specialists, but a bunch of texts were provided too by junior researchers, who found thus a way to promote their brand new inquiries ! Most branches are studied here, either heavy industries or agrobusiness and textile ; but specific areas are well approached : luxury firms, wine and beverages companies, for instance. The focus of Transnational Companies is to scrutinize the emergence of international policies among enterprises, whether through exports strategies or through direct investments in foreign countries, along branches, ways of development, entrepreneurial undertakings or competition's incentives. The book assesses too the move from internationalisation to transnationalisation in the interwar and mostly since the 1960s : owing to several case studies here presented, business schools and economic historians will be able to foster tuitions and seminars with fresh material. Lest several papers are earmarked to the argument about globalisation, that is the restructuring of firms'organisation towards internationalised internal divisions since the 1970s-1980s, as the book does cover the very last years of the 20th century.

As globalization explodes, so has international business scholarship. This second edition of the Oxford Handbook of International Business synthesises all the relevant literature of the last 40 years in 28 original chapters by the world's most distinguished scholars. Reflecting the changes and development in the field since the first edition this new edition has a changed structure, all the chapters have been updated to take account of the latest scholarship, and five new chapters freshly written. The Handbook is divided into six major sections, providing comprehensive coverage of the following areas: · History and Theory of the Multinational Enterprise · The Political and Regulatory Environment · Strategy and International Management · Managing the MNE · Area Studies · Methodological Issues These state of the art literature reviews will be invaluable references for students in business schools, social sciences, law, and area studies.

This is the first full account of how an influential form of commercial organization - the multinational enterprise - drove globalization and contributed to the making of the modern world. Robert Fitzgerald explores the major role of multinational enterprises in the events of world history, from the nineteenth century to the present, revealing how the growth of businesses that operated across borders contributed to an unprecedented worldwide transformation and deepening interdependence between countries. He demonstrates how international businesses shaped the economic development and competitiveness of nations, their politics and sovereignty, and the balance of power in international relations. The Rise of the Global Company uses the lessons of history to question prominent contemporary interpretations of multinationals and their consequences, and offers a truly wide-ranging survey of multinational enterprise, spanning two hundred years and five continents.

"One of the most comprehensive histories of modern capitalism yet written." —Michael Hirsh, New York Times An authoritative, insightful, and highly readable history of the twentieth-century global economy, updated with a new chapter on the early decades of the new century. Global Capitalism guides the reader from the globalization of the early twentieth century and its swift collapse in the crises of 1914–45, to the return to global integration at the end of the century, and the subsequent retreat in the wake of the financial crisis of 2008.

For much of the twentieth century, the prevalence of dictatorial regimes has left business, especially multinational firms, with a series of complex and for the most part unwelcome choices. This volume, which includes essays by noted American and European scholars such as Mira Wilkins, Gerald Feldman, Peter Hayes, and Wilfried Feldenkirchen, sets business activity in its political and social context and describes some of the strategic and tactical responses of firms investing from or into Europe to a myriad of opportunities and risks posed by host or home country authoritarian governments during the interwar period. Although principally a work of history, it puts into perspective some commercial dilemmas with which practitioners and business theorists must still unfortunately grapple.

Introduction -- Approaches and debates -- Forms of business organization -- Functions of enterprise -- Enterprise and society.

This book brings together selected essays on European Business Interest Associations (BIAs) as important components of European social and economic development over the last 150 years. The essays explore the roots and identity of BIAs of different European countries, analyse their activities and examine their financing sources and strategies.