The growing integration of many countries in a world-wide division of labour, the decline of trade barriers and national regulations, as well as an increasing mobility of production factors are described today in public and scientific discussions as "globalisation", in order to pinpoint a new quality in the internationalisation of the economy. On this general level the globalisation of industry encompasses the cross-border operations of enterprises in organising their research and development, production, in the procurement of materials and services, and their marketing and corporate finance activities. The distribution of various corporate activities among different countries is regarded as a crucial characteristic - or a new quality. This particular circumstance distinguishes globalisation from the previous form of internationalisation, in which a company was active in different countries, but could still be unmistakably assigned to one state of origin.
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