4.2.5 TNCs - global strategies and supply chains
Content
- Geographic inquiry and concept(s)
- How different places become interconnected by global interactions
- Geographic knowledge and understanding
- Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and outsourcing by transnational corporations (TNCs), and ways in which this networks places and markets
- Case study or detailed examples
- Two contrasting detailed examples of TNCs and their global strategies and supply chains
- Aims of this lesson
- To have knowledge and understanding of two contrasting TNCs and their global strategies and supply chains.
Base knowledge and understanding
News article
EU faces 300,000 factory job cuts as China ‘colonises’ supply chains, industry warns
Protest using 10 coffins to symbolise struggling manufacturing industry to take place in Brussels
The Guardian · 6 September 2026
Key terms
- Global strategy
- Refers to the plans an organisation has developed to target growth beyond its borders. Specifically, it aims to increase the sales of goods or services abroad.
- Global supply chain
- The worldwide system that a business uses to produce products or services.
- Supply chain
- A network between a company and its suppliers to produce and distribute a specific product to the final buyer. Companies develop supply chains so they can reduce their costs and remain competitive in the business landscape.
- Transnational corporation (TNC)
- A firm that owns or controls productive operations in more than one country through foreign direct investment.
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Review
- Analyse ways in which foreign direct investment by transnational corporations networks places together at different scales. [12]
- Analyse how profit repatriation and tax avoidance by transnational corporations threaten the economic sovereignty of states. [12]
- Analyse the political, economic and physical risks that threaten global supply chain flows. [12]
- Transnational corporations contribute more to human development than multi-governmental organisations. To what extent do you agree with this statement? [16]
- The power of global superpowers is declining relative to that of transnational corporations. To what extent do you agree with this statement? [16]
- The global shift of industry has caused more environmental harm to low-income countries than to high-income countries. To what extent do you agree with this statement? [16]