ABSTRACT
Facing new challenges of global competition, transnational corporations (TNCs) tend to extend product and service sourcing networks beyond national and regional borders, wherever TNC operating plants are located. In other words, TNCs are major actors in forging global value chains of production, whose rapid emergence will have an increasing impact on local patterns of economic and industrial development, both in OECD and developing nations. In many cases, TNCs are becoming drivers of industrial development through supplier/vendor programmes aimed at supportive enterprises of all sizes, including SMEs.1 Under the new concept of corporate social responsibility and the global compact proposal by the United Nations Secretary-General, some TNCs have even adopted a strategic philosophy of helping entrepreneurship capacity and promoting SMEs as their private contribution to boost development in emerging economies and less developed countries (LDCs).
