ABSTRACT
International activities undertaken by companies in a variety of ways have represented an important driver for economic growth since the final decades of the nineteenth century. Knowledge, technologies, products and capital from abroad played a very important role in enabling the industrial takeoff in several latecomer nations. At the same time, the existence of markets and/or a labor force and/or raw materials outside national borders was often crucial for the growth strategies of the large corporations in the most advanced nations (Wilkins 1970 1974; Franko 1976; Jones 2005). Alfred Chandler was well aware that the product diversification strategy was, and still is, only one of the possible ways in which companies are able to grow. The main alternative is to diversify the company's own geographical market, to sell its products abroad, or to set up production plants in other countries.
