New Horizons in International Business Series

TRANSNATIONAL CORPORATIONS IN SOUTHEAST ASIA

by Hans Jansson

Published 1 January 1994

Rapidly growing investment in Southeast Asia poses a major strategic and organizational challenge for European transnational corporations. In addition to establishing and maintaining profitable businesses in these strongly local markets, transnationals now have to integrate their Southeast Asian operations into their global strategies and operations.

Transnational Corporations in Southeast Asia presents an institutional economic approach which describes and explains the local and regional organization of seventeen European transnational corporations in Southeast Asian markets in relation to their worldwide organization. Focusing on the period from 1984 to 1991, the book also includes a detailed account of the establishment strategies of these corporations and their major operations in the region. Professor Jansson utilizes a transaction-cost theory to explain behaviour within the European transnational corporations.

Providing researchers, students and business analysts with detailed information on the experience of key transnational corporations in Southeast Asia, this important book also offers an assessment of the effects of marginal activities on multinational corporations in areas far away from their home base.

THE STATE AND TRANSNATIONAL CORPORATIONS

by Hans Jansson, M Saqib, and D Deo Sharma

Published 1 January 1995

Direct foreign investment by transnational corporations is of increasing importance for developing nations and has major implications for legislators, policymakers and business leaders. The State and Transnational Corporations is one of the first books to show how transnational corporations build contacts with various levels of government to legitimize their operations in a country and obtain favourable decisions.

Using data and figures from detailed interviews with transnational corporation executives, the authors examine the strategies transnational corporations pursue towards governments, how the two interact, on what issues and at which levels, and how these contacts are developed and maintained. Through the exchange of information and favours, transnational corporations - often using local agents - are shown to be able to develop stable and trustworthy relationships with governments. The strong theoretical structure used in this study, drawing on both the network approach and institutionalist theory, emphasizes the cooperative nature of this relationship.

Researchers and students of international business, international marketing and international relations, as well as government officials and policymakers, will welcome the rigorous, empirical approach of this volume with its emphasis on the cooperative nature of state-corporate relations.