Managing People in U.S.-Based Multinationals: The Case of Europe

Abstract

American multinational companies (MNCs) have extraordinary influence in the global economy. Having shrugged off the Japanese challenge of the 1970s and 1980s, they are the visible face of global U.S. economic influence. A quarter of the top 100 MNCs identified by the United Nation’s World Investment Report are American, and the proportion of their overseas operations and employment is increasing. Many major U.S.-based MNCs—IBM and McDonald’s, for example—now have a majority of their employees outside the United States and play a fundamental role in the host economies of Western Europe, where they are a dominant foreign presence in sectors such as information technology, consulting, chemicals, autos, and pharmaceuticals.1