Globalization and Technology
... movies, telephone, music and radio have opened a whole new market for many products. The same type products seem to be popular among today’s young people regardless of cultures of borders. While some products have to be modified according to culture many popular products such as clothing, soft drinks to name a few have found an enormous global market. Another key factor is the decrease in shipping. Many products are lighter and the use of data processing allows for weightless services, which use electronic networks. There is an increase in the need for keeping down the size and cost of R&D, finance, marketing, production, and networking. The increased need and the ability to keep down average costs have been made possible by serving a much larger market. Another key risk factor is the advantage of doing business with one country as opposed to another and the risk factor involved. The deregulation of cross-border business activity is seen as another key reason for the increase in globalization. "There is little doubt that globalization offers expansive opportunities for truly worldwide development but these opportunities are not advancing evenly (imf.org). Some countries are becoming integrated into the global economy more quickly than are others (imf.org). Countries that have been able to integrate are seeing expeditious growth and reduced poverty while those that have not integrated are suffering ill affects (imf.org). For example, in the 1970s and 1980s when many countries in Latin America followed inward-oriented policies, their economies stagnated or declined, poverty increased and high inflation became the norm (imf.org). As this region changed its policies toward more global ones, their situation began to improve (imf.org). Similar transformations need to be undertaken in other countries especially failing ones (imf.org). Encouraging the global trend, not reversing it, is the best and quickest course for promoting growth, development and poverty reduction (imf.org)." “Modernity is inheritently globalizing,” and that globalization (makes) modes of connection between social contexts or regions becomes networked across the earth’s surfaces as a whole.” This view follows directly from the concept of “disembedding” or “lifting out” of social relations from local contexts of interaction and their restructuring across time and space.”( Giddens) Globalization has forced many businesses to rethink their organizational strategies (Kathleen M. Einsenhardt). As the world continues to globalize many businesses are taking a long hard look at what the future holds for them in the way of organizational structure and practices. What globalization means to businesses, how it is causing them to change the way they structure their organizations and what the future holds. In order to take advantage of today’s market opportunities, companies have found it necessary to map out their strategies often called patching. All aspects of the business are looked at. When creating the company strategy it is necessary to take into consideration a variety of things. What is the business scale you want to operate within? At what point would it be best to start up a separate module? Part of the patching should cover when to add or drop a product from the company’s product line. Many successful businesses have used patching to their advantage to capture the market. Colgate, Dell and Hewlett Packard are a few companies that have used their company strategies to try to corner their piece of the market. Hewlett Packard is one of the companies Eisenhardt used to show the effectiveness of patching. Hewlett Packard has cornered the printing market by using their strategies to add or drop a product line. Patching is also important in determining what segment of the population a company is trying to reach with their marketing campaign. There are three key elements that link global business operations and social development (Ali (2001). There are three elements that are part of the linkage between business operations and societal developments. The first is interdependence, which means that companies are directly impacted by what is happening in another country. Companies are no longer able to operate in vacuum. What is going on in the world directly affects business and marketing strategies. The second is connectivity, this means that regardless of what country you are from there is a certain set of expectations and principles that are set forth. This means that geography and time no longer hold the importance they once did. This has forced people to be much more tolerant of cultural differences. The effect of integration is that countries are now forced to work together to try to minimize the effects of negative events and to maximize the benefits this endeavor becomes a group effort. These three things promote collective involvement between countries. Based on this review the following definition was suggested, “Globalization is a set of beliefs that fosters a sense of connectivity, interdependence, and integration in the world community. It highlights commonalities without overlooking differences, and it extends benefits and responsibilities on a global scale. "The idea that at present there has been no global advantages of the new technology is one that is debatable. There have been countless applications of technology world wide and these have translated in many cases to positive progress. Take for example global communications and satellite technologies. These have serves to remove the boundaries of time and space in order to enable a free flow of information. While these technologies are not available to everyone in the world (in particular to those who are citizens of the Third World), most people have felt their effects, and to a large extent these effects have been positive. In terms of communications technologies, for example, Third World nations must necessarily benefit from wireless technologies which eliminate the need for an established infrastructure. This is evident in the report titled “New Generation Technology Meets Third World Health Needs” (http://allafrica.com/stories/200103010191), in which the authors describe the benefits of cellular and digital technology in remote areas of Africa, “Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) enabled cellphones to allow doctors to receive detailed laboratory test results on the same day that samples were sent off. This was reportedly a first for the area, which is not serves by power or telephone lines. The doctors at the six clinics involved in the pilot project are now using the cellphones extensively” (http:// allafrica.com/stories/200103010191). This is true progress, in which the technology developed in industrialized...