Everyone, it seems, has a strongly felt position on globalisation. But there has been a lot less in-depth thought about the institution many see as globalisation’s primary driver, the multinational corporation. The very word we use suggests how antiquated our thinking about it is.

The emerging business model of the 21st century is not, in fact, “multinational”. This new kind of organisation – at IBM we call it “the globally integrated enterprise” – is very different in its structure and operations. Many parties to the globalisation debate mistakenly project the twentieth-century multinational on to 21st century global reality. This happens as often among free-market advocates as among those opposed to globalisation.