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The purpose of this paper is to reflect on the author's research and teaching on transnational corporations and global capitalism over the last 40 years.

A chronological account of the changing nature of TNCs and their impacts, and the evolution of critical studies within the field.

Within the literature on TNCs, critical scholarship has played an important role in developing alternative perspectives.

The paper reports the author's personal reflections on his field of study, which are intentionally subjective.

Appreciation of the scope and effectiveness of critical scholarship in international business.

The paper's value lies in offering a broad-brush picture of the evolution of TNCs and their critical study over four decades.

This paper documents and accounts for the globalization of the so-called national bourgeoisie in the late twentieth century. A substantial and growing body of sociological literature holds that firms and investors from the developing world have been denationalized, neutered, or destroyed by their efforts to penetrate international markets – and that cross-national economic competition is therefore giving way to transnational class conflict over time. By way of contrast, I hold that not only peripheral capitalists but their elected and appointed representatives are compelled to undertake large-scale, fixed investments, exploit their competitive advantages, and challenge foreign firms – and their respective representatives – on their own soil by the very logic of capitalist competition, and that the aforementioned challenges will occur on political as well as economic terrain.

This article reflects on the development and impact of critical perspectives on international business (CPoIB) during its first decade of existence. The influence that the journal has had through its efforts to challenge orthodox understandings of international business (IB) is considered. The evolution of CPoIB is set against the changing global environment. The contributions to this 10th anniversary issue are outlined.

The journal's contents are reviewed and their impact assessed through an analysis of download and citation data. The position of the journal in various journal quality rankings is also examined. The contents of mainstream IB journals are compared to those of CPoIB.

During its short life, CPoIB has had an important impact on the field of IB both directly through the consideration of issues from a critical perspective in the pages of the journal and through its influence on the field of IB and critical management studies.

The conclusions of the research are based on nine years of citation and download data as well as journal quality lists.

The findings of this paper provide valuable information for authors seeking a quality and impactful outlet for their research in the field of critical perspectives on IB and related disciplines. Academic and political activists in the field of IB will find theoretical backgrounds supporting their political campaigns.

This is the only paper to undertake an assessment of the first decade of CPoIB's development, content, and impact.