Explain the role of TNCs in international trade.

The transnational (multinational) enterprise (TNC): a business enterprise operating in MORE THAN ONE country through a network of affiliates under a common control — the parent's strategic direction, the subsidiaries' national incorporation (the TNC as ONE business, MANY legal persons — the structure's legal consequence: each affiliate a national citizen, the whole a global operator). No single treaty definition governs (the attempts — the UN Code of Conduct's failure — noted below); the working definitions emphasise the structure (the affiliates), the control (the parent's), and the coherence (the common strategy). The joint venture (JV): two or more parties (often a foreign investor and a local partner) combining resources in a common enterprise under a joint-control agreement — the shared ownership, the shared risk, the shared management (the JV agreement's own law: the contributions, the board's composition, the deadlock clauses, the exit). The JV as the market-entry mode: the local partner's knowledge + the foreign partner's capital-and-technology. The pair's relation: the JV is often the TNC's ENTRY VEHICLE (the foreign affiliate established jointly with the local firm) — the wholly-owned subsidiary the alternative.