Perceptions, policies, and regulations around the world all intertwine effecting businesses. Those who have a presence in more than one environment can draw on that experience to take maximum advantage of their power.

Multinational enterprises are joining together to transform the latter part of the twentieth century into a trade and business network such as has never existed at any other time in history. Factors such as the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum (APEC) and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) have joined the world together in way that it has never been joined before. Caves points out that these factors and the transformations occurring are the result of a strategic effort by multinational enterprises to shape governmental policy

ographic areas, a business with a little creativity and twenty or thirty dollars a month can create a page on the world wide web which has the potential to compete side by side with advertising efforts by multi-million dollar corporations. These changes in business practices result in large-scale changes in the global economy and in international relationships.

Today's businesses are now judged by their influence. Caves notes, however, that technology transfer is an almost osmotic type of relationship. He specifies that technology transfer takes place when the consumers in developing countries have access to the goods and services that embody the technology. Domestic production of technology-intensive goods and services in developing countries is not as important at the ultimate consumption of technologically intensive goods and services within a country. It is that consumption which keeps the country on the cutting edge and allows it to stay abreast of wealthier and more influential countries.

Caves stresses that multinational enterprises use communication and technology to shape policies and perceptions as a means to an end, not as an end in itself. With technology and communication multinational enterprises have reshaped the world in less than a quarter of a century. Their

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Approximate Word count = 869
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)