Transnational - The buzz word for today's businesses

Transnational is a term that has been around for a long period of time but off late has become extremely popular.

Transnational Organizations have invested in foreign operations, have a central corporate facility but give decision-making, R&D and marketing powers to each individual foreign market. Simply put a s a corporation or a company that manages the production or supplying services in more than one country. These companies increasingly shape our lives as they weave worldwide webs of production, consumption, finance, and culture. To be able to comprehend the business practices of transnational corporations, a current understanding of global business and current affairs is needed. These companies command enormous financial resources, possess vast technical resources and have extensive global reach. 

Despite their impact in developing economies, however transnational companies are profit-seeking organizations.  Such dual roles of funding and profit seeking have made TNCs object of great controversy.  Do they help or hinder? Do they give or take?

Globalization, particularly the dismantling of trade barriers, has allowed companies to spread widely in search of cost efficiency and to implement integrated production strategies across regions and even continents. Unquestionably, they bring resources of great potential benefit to developing countries but they can take away Business from local industries and can change the economy of the hosting nation. It can also cause a loss of culture and traditional values as more and more people become “globalised”. The profits made by the TNC leave the hosting country creating an outflow of capital (money).

With all these threats to the host country, this trend also causes concern for the home country. In the race of globalizing in the world and learning effective ways of doing business in a foreign land, transnational organization a pose a threat for the home country as it directly affects the jobs there. A lot of such countries might face loss of jobs and revenues due to transnational companies.

So as the world becomes flatter and more n more globalized, it is accompanied by criticism of the current forms of globalization, which are feared to be overly corporate-led. As corporations become larger, multinational or transnational their influence and interests go further accordingly. Today we know that corporations, for good or bad, are major influences on our lives. These companies increasingly shape our lives as they weave worldwide webs of production, consumption, finance, and culture.  In this era, it is for us to try and make corporate behavior more responsible when it comes to ethics, working conditions, environmental sustainability, etc.