The collapse of socialism and opening up of markets in the East has led to a significant structural change in direct investment behaviour on a worldwide scale. The trend is particularly evident in Germany's direct investment patterns over the past two years. While newly industrializing countries...

Many commentaries on the present economic situation contend that Germany is increasingly "exporting jobs" rather than producing competitive goods and services. Can Germany continue to compete effectively with other business locations in the battle for mobile investment capital?

This article offers a contribution to the topical discussion of multinationals. It describes the quantitative and qualitative identification criteria for these enterprises and analyses the internationalisation process of German firms.