World telecommunications equipment industry from the National champions to outsourcing: the case of ALCATEL*

In the last two decades of the twentieth century, world telecommunications underwent major changes. The national fractions of that world market present remarkable peculiarities, with differing features according to the countries. This article concerns new episodes of the reorganization of the oligopolistic structure of the European telecommunications equipment industry during the 1990s and the first years of the new millennium from the perspective of ALCATEL. The French multinational presents itself as a magnificent example of the transformations that have taken place on a global scale. Methodologically, the case serves as an artifact to verify that a thorough understanding of the adjustment in the world economy requires elucidating how multinational companies were restructured. The article relies on the sources of the companies concerned, on reports from large international organizations, on parliamentary documents from various countries and on a meticulous newspaper archive.