A multinational corporation is usually a large corporation which produces or sells goods or services in various countries.[4] It may be attributed as multinational corporation when a corporation is registered in more than one country or has operations in more than one country.[citation needed]
Multinational corporations take many different forms and engage in many different activities:[5]
Importing and exporting goods and services
Making significant investments in a foreign country
Buying and selling licenses in foreign markets
Engaging in contract manufacturing—permitting a local manufacture in a foreign country to produce their products
Opening manufacturing facilities or assembly operations in foreign countries
The problem of moral and legal guiding behaviors of multinational corporations, given that they are effectively "stateless" actors, is one of the urgent global socioeconomic problems that emerged during the late twentieth century.[6]
One of the first multinational business organizations, East India Company, arose in 1600.[7] After East India Company, came Dutch East India Company, founded March 20, 1602, which would become the largest company in the world for nearly 200 years.[8]