CHARTING THE CONTOURS OF MULTINATIONALSIN BRITAIN:Methodological challenges arising in survey-basedresearch

The importance of multinational companies (MNCs) in the UK economy is not inquestion. One way in which this is evident is that Britain is a major recipient offoreign direct investment (FDI) by MNCs, accounting for 8.7% of the inward stockof global FDI. In addition, large numbers of multinationals originate in Britain; theUK accounts for 14.2% of the stock of outward FDI (UN, 2006). In both cases theUK is the second largest individual country, behind the USA. The prevalence ofMNCs means that they have significant scope to influence the ‘rules of the game’within the country.[...]