The Internationalization of Business

This book examines the emergence during the four decades following World War II of international companies, which have moved away from exporting to a more truly international status. The international distribution of their production facilities and the increasing internationalization of their management and ownership patterns have created organizational patterns and loyalties which overlap national boundaries. Increasingly these companies find themselves operating in vastly different political, economic and cultural environments, where the implicit values of the societies may differ considerably from those of the home base of the company. Although in the main these companies have been American or West European in origin and in their cultural outlook, there are increasing numbers of non-Western companies in their number, not merely Japanese but other Asian companies. The author suggests that this pattern may be a harbinger of a shifting balance of economic power in the 21st century to the economies of the Pacific world.
Professor Livingstone is also author of "Britain and the World Economy", "The British Economy in Theory and Practice", "The International Enterprise", "International Marketing Management" and "Management Economics in Practice."