The Local Embeddedness of Transnational Corporations

Abstract

Abstract Although the terminology may be recent, the question of the local embeddedness of transnational corporations (TNCs) has long been a central issue in the debate over the relationship between such organizations and the geographical areas in which they operate. As the geographical extensiveness of TNC activity progressively increased in the decades after World War II a broad consensus developed in much of the critical literature that TNCs were inexorably becoming ‘placeless’ organizations, owing no allegiance to country, region, or local community. They were seen as ‘snatchers’ rather than ‘stickers’, as operators of a metaphorical ‘slash and burn’ policy whereby areas were exploited for their resources (including labour) and then abandoned as the resource became exhausted or as better or cheaper alternatives were identified elsewhere.