The internationalisation process of companies

I.) Introduction
"Global interdependence is pervasive. It is not only political and military....[but] also environmental.... Perhaps the most important aspect of interdependence however is economic." (Terpstra, 1993, Preface)
Today more and more firms operate internationally and in some cases even globally. In almost all major economies of the world, the significance of domestic and/or foreign-based transnational corporations is increasing. Such corporations, directly or indirectly, account for a large part of world trade in goods and services (cf. Nilsson, Dicken 1996 p.1).
Attempts to theorise such international developments are widespread; therefore, there is no such thing as a "universal" theory. However, the emphasis of most theories tends to be on how businesses should internationalise rather than on why they should do so. Most contributions in literature focus on strategies and structures of international firms but do not explain the reasons of internationalisation.
The m...