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Week 12. Organisations: The Business of the Global Corporations

In what ways has globalisation led to the creation of increasingly complex forms of social and economic organisation? What are multinationals and why have they become such powerful symbols of globalisation? How have multinationals developed over time? Where and in what sectors are multinational strongest? Have multinationals contributed to the globalisation of culture? Have multinationals created global elites?

1. Key Readings

- Paul Seabright, The Company of Strangers: A Natural History of Economic Life (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004), ch. 1.

Please read at least one of these (though it would preferable both of them):

- Mira Wilkins, “The Historical Development of Multinational Enterprise to 1930: Discontinuities and Continuities,” in in Alfred D. Chandler Jr and Bruce Mazlish, eds., Leviathans: Multinational Corporations and the New Global History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), pp. 45-79.* [HD2755.5.L484]

- Geoffrey Jones, “Globalization,” in Geoffrey Jones and Jonathan Zeitlin, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Business History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), pp. 141-168. [HF352.O94] and avaliable as an E-Book.

2. A Multinational Corporation

Work in groups of three and choose a multinational or large corporation of your choice: trade its history and explain how it influenced the economy, society and life in different countries. Please post a 300-400-word summary on the course Forum.

3. Presentations

- Bruce Mazlish and Elliott R. Morss, “A Global Elite?,” in Alfred D. Chandler Jr and Bruce Mazlish, eds., Leviathans: Multinational Corporations and the New Global History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), pp. 167-186.

- Naomi Klein, No Logo (New York, 2001), introduction and ch. 9 (pp. xiii-xxi, 195-230). and Part 2