ABSTRACT
The organization and management of multinational firms have reflected phases in the development of the international economy. Evolving global and national contexts, economic and political, influenced internal company structures, and the external links multinationals formed with governments and other firms. Through historical analysis, we can also show how multinationals contributed dynamically to the expansion and impact of global business. Theories in business strategy and organization imply certainty about global best practice, or they offer a suite of distinct organizational options. Actual choices have been replete with difficulties, implemented tentatively, or constantly adjusted. Furthermore, firms have had to respond to dramatic events, such as expropriations, occupations, policy changes, and economic crashes, while adapting by design or piecemeal to more slowly moving shifts in the global economy. In real time, multinationals have encountered unknowns rather than certainties. The activities and investments of multinationals have been formative influences on national economies and the international balance of power: in the creation of infrastructure, commodity production, and transcontinental trading and finance links in the period before 1914; the growing transfer of technology and management know-how from parent firm to foreign subsidiaries from the 1950s; or in the increasing exploitation of locational advantages since the 1990s through the combination of integrated cross-border production chains and contracting-out.
