In this ceaseless churning, no firm or set of scrutinizers of firms can stay quiescent. Figure 1 shows that commerce reaches up the diagram from its end-Century position to focus on the flow of new potential. The structure of commerce changes, focusing in two ways. First, it focuses on the stage of development of the project. Second, it focuses on the knowledge that it needs to access or the stakeholders that it needs to please, not on traditional industry categories.
Firms operate within value chains which are usually at least partly transnational.
Many proprietary value chains will sprawl across political frontiers, making the firm 'multinational'. It will, however, less see itself as a foreigner as the conduit of a semi-native stream of activity. Some firms have explicit transnational links, where they replicate all that they do in a foreign country. They do this less for market or resource access, as was once the case, than for access to knowledge pools, to satisfy regulatory demands or for brand continuity. Exceptions to this rule abound in relation to the poor or poorly organised nations, where managerial issues remain acutely weak and where inward investment is always needed.