Towards a Political Economy Framework: TNCs as National and Global Players

Abstract

Transnational corporations (TNCs), like all large and complex formal organizations, have two core features. First, they produce goods and services that satisfy consumer needs, and in the course of doing so provide income and employment to large numbers of people. Second, they are political actors, using power to shape the conditions under which they conduct their productive activities and as a result profoundly influence the lives of employees, customers and local communities. Something of these two aspects was captured by The Economist (27 March 1993) when it called them ‘everybody’s favourite monster’. The purpose of this chapter is to contribute theoretically to the second ‘political’ view but without losing sight of the first.