Introduction

This chapter offers an introduction to the challenges resulting from national corporations’ globalization. As technological development and international competition accelerate, companies have been forced to reorganize themselves beyond their national boundaries in order to survive. Yet, national corporations’ globalization causes serious tensions between the interests of individual companies and the interests of national economies as a whole. After examining the existing views on the effects of corporate globalization on national economies, this chapter suggests a theoretical alternative. In contrast to neoliberal globalism and recent GVC literature, corporations’ globalization does not automatically lead to optimal outcomes, nor necessarily cause the hollowing out of domestic production as nationalists worry. To various effects of corporate globalization on national economies, this chapter suggests the industrial commons as the decisive factor for success and also highlights the politics of coordination to explain how to improve the domestic industrial commons.