Types of company operating foreign interests

Bartlett and Goshal (Bartlett, C.A. and Ghosal, S. 1989: Managing Across the Borders: The Transnational Solution, Hutchinson, Business Books.) classify four types of company operating foreign interests: global, multinational international, and transnational companies.

Global Company

The Global Company, exemplified by such Japanese firms as Kao and NEC, centralizes key functions – including marketing and finance. Headquarters produces the new technology and disseminates it to subsidiaries.  Cost advantages are achieved through economies of scale and global-scale operations.  The need for efficiency and economies of scale means that products are developed that exploit needs felt across the range of countries.  Specific local needs tend to be ignored.

(Global Company - NEC)

Multinational Company

The Multinational Company is a corporation that has its facilities and other assets in at least one country other than its home country. Such companies have offices and factories in different countries and usually have a centralized head office where they coordinate global management. Very large multinationals have budgets that exceed those of many small countries.

（Multinational Company – McDonalds）

International Company

The International Company retains considerable control over the subsidiary’s management systems and marketing policy, but less so than in the global company.  Products and technologies are developed for the home market, extended to other countries with similar market characteristics, then diffused elsewhere, and the developmental sequence is decided on the basis of managing the product lifecycle as efficiently and flexibility as possible.

(International Company – Coca Cola)

Transnational Company

The Transnational Company which operate in more than one country or nation at a time -- have become some of the most powerful economic and political entities in the world today.  From Joshua Karliner, in his book, The Corporate Planet: Ecology and Politics in the Age of Globalization, we can gleam a host of fundamental realizations, including the fact that many of these companies have far more power than the nation-states across whose borders they operate. for example Nokia is currently the number one manufacturer of mobile devices in the world. With a market share of about 38% in 2007 and with net sales of up to 51.1 billion Euros, there’s no doubt about the company’s significance and success.

(Transnational Company - NOKIA)