Assess the impact of transnational corporations (TNCs) on their host countries.

The impact which Transnational Corportaitons  (TNCs) have on their host countries, countries which in they both offshore their operations to and set up branches in, is a contested subject within socio-economic, political and environmental geographies. To an extent, TNCs tend to offer positive impacts to host countries: for example oil giants Shell, who launched the Shell Foundation in 2000, invested $30 million to fund sustainability and biodiversity within local communities of the 70 host countries which it operates in (according to 2013 figures). Furthermore, and contrary to popular critiques of TNCs globally, Shell paid £20 billion in corportation tax in 2013; providing opportunitiy for host governments to invest it into improving either social welfare or environmental protection. Such actions taken by Shell suggest that TNCs can have an array of positive impacts on host countries which it operates in. 

Despite this, it is arguably more supported to argue that TNCs can often undermine the host countries which they operate in. Although Shell claim that they invest in communities of their host economies, such large companies pose a threat to indigenous people; namely the Ogoni people of Nigeria, who have seen their land destroyed with Shell having extracted $30 billion worth of crude oil from here since the 1950s. A reason to suggest that TNCs are burdens to their host countries are the poor working conditions which they oversee in both the secondary and tertiary sector. Nike, for example, have faced consistent allegations against workers of sexual and verbal abuse across several factories including Jakarta, Indonesia. Therefore, while TNCs offer benefits to their host economies, it's arguably more appropriate to conclude that they threaten social norms and political stability in these nations to a greater extent than that which they benefit them.