Discuss the extent to which foreign multinational enterprises have Research Paper

Discuss the extent to which foreign multinational enterprises have contributed to technological development in a specific indust - Research Paper Example 23-37), which have now become essential forces behind survival and success of a country internationally. Literature and course readings (Cantwell, 2001) have indicated that multinational enterprises are equipped with a number of tools through which it promotes innovation and development across nations, especially developing countries, such as trade, ventures, collaborative efforts, etc. Among these options, one major actor that plays a significant role is foreign direct investment that is also known as FDI (Balasubramanyam & Salisu, 1996, pp. 92-105). It has been an observation that for developing countries, FDI does not only bring business to the country but it also enables multinational enterprises to bring in their technologies, as well as assets from abroad that results in extraordinary outcomes for the country itself (Blomstrom & Kokko, 2003, n.p). This incoming of assets is one of the fundamental reasons that incline developing countries to give value to foreign direct investme nts in their regions. ... Particularly, economic development is not a simple notion, which has often been limited to economic progress of a country in terms of its GDP; however, analysis (Borensztein & Lee, 1995, pp. 115-124) has indicated that economic development revolves around economic, as well as social advancement of a country that often does not allow quantitative analysis. Thus, experts usually overlook aspects, such as social justice, political freedom, etc that directly or indirectly results in enhancement of standard of lifestyles of country’s population. One can understand this relationship of FDI with economic development of a country by considering evidence (Borensztein & Lee, 1995, pp. 117-131) that shows that countries with higher rate of economic growth are more likely to develop rapidly in the sectors of education and health resulting in progression in the political system, and subsequently, allocation of wealth and rights. In this regard, while one cannot quantify the relationship of economic growth and social development, it is evident that economic growth creates a positive environment for social progress, and this relationship analysis gives an idea of the role of multinational enterprises through their foreign direct investment in economic development that is holistic development of a country. Discussion In order to exemplify understanding of the above relationship, this section of the paper will include efforts of the research to analyse the role of multinational enterprises that they have been playing by contributing towards technological development in industrial sector of India. Although globalisation (Barnes & Kaplinsky, 2000, n.p) has resulted in an overflow of knowledge and information, developing countries, such as South Africa, India, etc are now depending