ABSTRACT
There is a broad evidence and agreement that multinational enterprises (MNEs) play a leading role in the world economy. However, both evidence and agreement fall to pieces when it comes to qualifying this role in quantitative as well as qualitative terms. This chapter addresses two rather different aspects of very large enterprise (VLE). First, it presents some evidence on their aggregate performance and compares it to the national performance. Second, it looks at the VLEs as the ultimate structuring forces of the world economy and the truly focal role they may play in Global Value Chains (GVC). An additional important aspect of the GVC structure refers to the sources of strengths of the focal firms in each industry and the level of concentration. By doing so the firm uses its structuring power or capacity it derives from its other assets or skills to model its environment according its strategic views.
