Buyouts Beyond Borders: Transnational Mergers and Acquisitions and the Globalization Question Luke Dauter MA Paper(Draft) Department of Sociology University of California Berkeley Please do not cite without author’s permission.
Buyouts Beyond Borders: Transnational Mergers and Acquisitions and the Globalization Question
The globalization debate has centered around transnational corporations. Global systems theory is predicated upon the idea that the individuals who run these corporations constitute a transnational capitalist class. This is an emergent dominant class, not beholden to any nation, or national economy, seeking to advance economic globalization through Foreign Direct Investment across the globe. Casting doubt upon globalization in general and thus on the idea of a transnational capitalist class are those scholars who point to empirical evidence suggesting that globalization may in fact be regionalization, or economic integration in the developed world. With adjudication between these two perspectives in mind, this paper examines the merger and acquisition patterns, both domestic and transnational, of 100 of the world’s largest corporations over the period of eight years from 1994 to 2001. The results show mixed evidence. Domestic mergers and acquisitions remain important for companies from the largest companies, but transnational mergers and acquisitions play an important role regardless of home country. While regionalization and investment in developed nations accounts for much of the transnational merger wave, truly global mergers and acquisitions still make up a large proportion of merger and acquisition activity. European companies in particular are shown to be active globalizers.
For the past twenty‐five years or so, academics from all disciplines have been attempting to define, understand, and examine globalization. Central to the ...