Certain projects require skills, resources, and distribution systems far beyond one single company's or country's capabilities. In such situations a number of companies may enter into an agreement to share knowledge and responsibilities while maintaining their own legal and managerial autonomy. These supercorporations will then attempt to enter into an agreement with a country that has the resources needed to jointly own and manage the enterprise while maintaining its own national sovereignty. 1
These super-corporations, in their collaboration with nation-states, form a type of multinational industry that might be called a megacorporation (that is, a corporation of corporations). The conventional megacorporation has been involved in resource utilization—the mining, drilling, processing, transporting, etc., of raw materials such as oil, copper, bauxite, and zinc. ARAMCO, the Arabian American Company, is the classic example of that type of earthbound venture. In the future worldwide business will involve a plethora of space-based and earthbound super-corporations. Ventures such as the Columbia Space Shuttle and ocean exploration and seabed exploitation enterprises will be common. The increasing sophistication of telecommunications will bring a new breed of global corporations whose purpose will be to transmit spoken, written, and coded data via a huge network of global talk, or, as Joseph N. Pelton calls it, “telecomputerenergetics.” 2
Going international requires a company's gradual involvement in and devotion of organizational resources to international activities. The process begins with a low-involvement mode—exporting—and ends with a highinvolvement mode—investing. Although most companies that become multinational start with exporting, it is conceivable that a company might find it extremely profitable to start at any step of the process. By the same token, it is also possible that a company might decide never to leave a given step in order to move to a higher-involvement step.
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