Globalization has become the essence of international trade and has been the primary reason why companies have gone beyond their national boundaries and setup production centers in different countries. As a consequence, consumers today are getting high quality, low priced and technologically enhanced products and services all over the world. Some commodities that have been widely affected by globalization are oil & gas, our primary sources of energy. World energy sector has been booming as giant corporations go to different countries in the search of new sources of energy. Saudi Arabia since its inception and the discovery of oil has been the center of the world oil trade and politics. It plays a major role in the supply of oil and keeping the prices in balance. So, it naturally attracted the major oil exploration and production giants from all over the world to extract the biggest source of energy. This paper gives an overview of the multinationals operating in the Saudi Arabian energy sector and how they have impacted the growth of the sector.
This dissertation through use of secondary resources and qualitative analysis intends to add value to the existing literature by bringing out a new perspective in the international business research. Literature Review forms the base of the dissertation and is essentially divided into three parts. The first part explores the existing theories relating to Multinational companies and Internationalization. It explains the evolution of the theories and presents counter views on the internationalization of companies. The second part talks about the macroeconomic environment of Saudi Arabia using the PESTLE framework and describes the factors any company should consider before investing in Saudi Arabia. The third and the last part of the Literature review we discuss the energy sector of Saudi Arabia and the major companies operating in it. It uses the well known Porter?s Five Forces model to understand the competitive structure of the Saudi Arabia energy sector.
The next section of the dissertation is key findings where the information received from the previous section is analyzed. The impact on the energy sector is discussed followed by the gaps in the existing studies and the future prospects of the Saudi Arabian energy sector. The dissertation concludes by summarizing the key findings obtained from the various studies and paves way for further research on this topic.