`The One-Company Approach': Transnationalism in an Israeli—Palestinian Subsidiary of a Multinational Corporation

Abstract

This paper presents an ethnographic study of the Israeli—Palestinian subsidiary of a multinational hi-tech corporation. Critiquing the tendency of globalization theorists to conceptualize multinational corporations (MNCs) solely in terms of their impact on their external environment, this paper looks inward and examines the ideological and practical constituents of the transnational regime of consciousness as expressed through what management titles `the one-company approach'. We argue that this regime lays foundations for a transnational `imagined community' which does not rival the national one, but internalizes it, creating an arena of discretionary power for managers: deciding when to activate and when to suppress nationality in the global organizational universe. This study analyzes the relationship between transnationalism and nationalism inside the organization, and its implications for understanding MNCs' role in globalization.