ABSTRACT
Objectives and learning outcomes A significant trend in the last 25 years is the globalization of the economic environment.This means that goods and services are increasingly being produced and sold across national economic boundaries. This chapter investigates the rise of globalization and the multinational enterprise (MNE) and analyses the motives for multinational operations as well as the effects of MNEs on consumers, parent countries and host countries. It also considers the relationship between MNEs and governments in parent and host economies. The significance of MNEs cannot be underestimated since it has been estimated that the 200 largest MNEs have a combined sales equal to about one-third of the world’s gross domestic product (GDP).
