The article analyzes the impact of the economic and financial crisis on foreign direct investments flows by trying to explain in the beginning the causes of the current sub-prime crisis that started in the US through a chronological presentation of the events that took place on the international arena. Afterwards, the focus of the analysis restrains to the case of Romania: main investors in Romania, economic sectors that received most of the foreign direct investments, industries where new jobs were created, companies with foreign shareholders established. On the short run, it is considered that the negative impact of the global economic and financial crisis on the global flow of foreign direct investments will remain dominant, contributing thus to its continuous decrease in 2009, with the mention that decreases will be recorded at all levels. Still, some factors like investment opportunities given by the reduced asset prices and industrial restructuring, the existence of financial resources in emergent economies and petrol exporting countries, the rapid expansion of new activities such as unconventional energy resources could contribute to the revitalization of the international investments flows.

This paper aims to investigate the evolution of economic theories that explain firms’ internationalization and the development of foreign direct investments. Arguments are intended to show that theoretical approaches in this field are rooted in the period of classical theories of the international trade. Theoretic fundamentals regarding the internationalization of the firm comprise of the literature review, mentioning the main theoretical trends based of which present understanding on transnational companies is formulated. Conclusions show that as the complexity of larger companies’ activity increases, the need for a new theoretical development to explain the relationships among different economic actors appears. Also, the evolution of the economic theories shows that a single theory cannot explain by itself the complexity of the present and especially of the future economic environment.