ABSTRACT
Globalisation means different things to different people. It affects companies and countries in a variety of ways. Increasingly, it imposes on companies and countries the need to be focused, competitive and efficient, in order to better equip themselves for meeting newer and stronger challenges. The globalisation process, changes in corporate investment strategies in servicing global markets, the advancement of technological development, the global liberalisation process and growing competition have pushed companies and countries to search for – and implement – suitable strategies to compete for ‘market shares’. It is not uncommon today to see adversaries or competitors cooperating or forming strategic alliances among themselves to service markets, support greater product development and to create value. In a similar way, more and more countries are cooperating to attract foreign direct investment (FDI), partly because of greater competition, and partly as a response to changing investment strategies of multinational firms (MNEs) and the proliferation of regional economic groupings or free trade area arrangements.
