Corporate Governance & MNES in Globalization & Cyberspace (Global Economic Studies)

Globalisation is the phenomenon of improved integration of the world economy as evidenced by the growth of international trade and factor mobility. Globalisation involves primarily liberalisation of trade in goods and services, and a free movement of direct and portfolio capital. Nowadays, globalisation is distinguished in part because of the major role of information technology and cyberspace. Cyberspace includes a range of places connected to real space in many different ways. A communications network changes the character of existing space. Thus, changes in the ways that information is experienced and the ways that economic, political, and personal dealings are structured, change the nature of real space. There is a shift from international law to law and globalisation providing a new incentive for erasing the artificial boundary between public and private international law. Despite the fact that international financial institutions and MNEs are the engines of economic globalisation, powerful states remain the vital drivers. Global governance is defined as the amount of laws, norms, policies, and institutions that identify, constitute, and mediate trans-border relations between states, cultures, citizens, intergovernmental and non-governmental organisations, and the market. Corporate governance focuses wholly on protecting the interests of equity claimants in a company, expanding its focus to deal with the problems of "stakeholders" or non shareholder constituencies. New communication and circulation technologies together with the elimination of trade and investment barriers have shaped global markets with global competition for corporate control, commodities, services and capital. MNEs taking up a transnational strategy seek to achieve concurrently global effectiveness and local responsiveness with the assets and activities dispersed but specialised. About the Author Georgios I. Zekos, BSc(Econ), JD, LLM, Ph.D.(Law),Ph.D.(Econ) (TEI of Central Macedonia)