Report of the Seminar in Copenhagen, May 2005
The new EADI Working Group on Transnational Corporations and Development held a seminar at the Center for Business and Development Studies in Copenhagen in May (19th-20th). The purpose of the seminar was to discuss a future research agenda on TNCs and development, to plan sessions of TNCs and development at the EADI general conference, and to discuss ongoing research in the group. It already now seems that there is a strong interest in the working group; 18 researchers participated in the seminar in Copenhagen and 35 are on the working group's mailing list. The group decided to focus on five issues related to TNCs and development in the future:
1. TNCs and integration of local firms in global value chains
2. TNCs and poverty
3. Third World multinationals
4. Policy regimes, FDI and development
5. Corporate Social Responsibility and development
Apart from discussing a research agenda, the group heard and discussed a number of papers reflecting ongoing research in the group. The next event on the agenda of the working group will be to organize a number of sessions on TNCs and development at the EADI General Conference in September in Bonn. This will be the responsibility of the working group's conveners Michael W. Hansen (mwh.ikl(AT)cbs.dk) from Copenhagen Business School and Eric Rugraff (eric.rugraff(AT)urs.u-strasbg.fr) from University of Strassburg. The next working group seminar will be held in London in the early Spring of 2006.
