Conclusion: International business in time

Summary

What might be said to distinguish international business from business generally? And how did some of the key features that specifically distinguish international business change over time? Even with a broad and detailed survey, looking at the impact of the multinational through world trends and particular events, it is only possible to focus on some of its dimensions, inevitably downplaying others. Nonetheless, the first key differentiating factor to consider for international business, identifying it as a subject in its own right, is the actions and policies of host governments, or their ability and power to manage relationships with multinationals and, potentially, with the multinationals’ home governments. In assessing any case, the strength and standing of a host government, the stability and coherence of its institutions, the size of the country, the scale of its own security and economic resources are additionally relevant.

In the years between 1870 and 1914, or, if preferred, Global Economy I, Asian polities commonly found themselves poorly equipped to cope with the economic changes and policy demands brought by multinationals that originated, for the most part, in Europe. The history of a nineteenth-century Africa divided by and shared out amongst European states – justified by claims of respecting the rights of local polities and indigenous peoples by formally seeking their ‘agreement’ – makes the point even more strongly.

As transnational contact grew and the search for the ‘normalization’ of trade and investment relations intensified, there was the heightened possibility of the second differentiating factor in international business, the representation or involvement of a multinational's home government. In the context of the period, the transnational forces of traders and investors brought the risk of direct and visible intervention. It would be incorrect to see the foreign policies of interventionist governments as merely determined by the interests of multinationals and merchants: in some cases, consideration of these interests was incidental, although never wholly inconsequential, while sometimes they were at the very centre of events.

As we have noted, the British government commonly intervened in Asia and Africa with reluctance, in response to border instability overseas, domestic political pressures, or the complex game of major power rivalries, and it weighed the dangers of becoming overstretched militarily and economically.