The Transnational Company

Most companies doing international business today are still organized as traditional multinationals. But the transformation into transnational companies has begun, and it is moving fast. The products are services may b the same, but the structure is fundamentally different. In a transnational company there is only one economic unit, the world. Selling, servicing, research, finance, marketing, pricing, and management are conducted in contemplation of the world market. One of the America’s leading engineering companies, for instance, make one critical part for all its forty-three plants worldwide in one location outside of Antwerp, Belgium and nothing else. It has organized product development for the entire world in three places and quality control in four. For this company, national boundaries have largely become irrelevant.
The transnational company is not totally beyond the control of national governments. It must adapt to them. But these adaptations are expectation to policies and practices decide on for worldwide markets and technologies. Successful transnational company see themselves as separate, non national entities. This self –perception is evidenced by something unthinkable a few decades ago; a transnational top management.