GLOBALIZATION

GLOBALIZATIONCHAPTER 2

What Is Globalization?

Globalization is a process of interaction and integration among the people, companies, and governments of different nations, a process driven by international trade and investment and aided by information technology. This process has effects on the environment, on culture, on political systems, on economic development and prosperity, and on human physical well-being in societies around the world.

Globalization is not new, though. For thousands of years, peopleand, later, corporationshave been buying from and selling to each other in lands at great distances, such as through the famed Silk Road across Central Asia that connected China and Europe during the Middle Ages. Likewise, for centuries, people and corporations have invested in enterprises in other countries. In fact, many of the features of the current wave of globalization are similar to those prevailing before the outbreak of the First World War in 1914ORThis is the integration of economies, industries, markets, cultures and policy-making around the world. [1]Globalisation describes a process by which national and regional economies, societies, and cultures have become integrated through the global network of trade, communication, immigration and transportation.

In the more recent past, globalisation was often primarily focused on the economic side of the world, such as trade, foreign direct investment and international capital flows, more recently the term has been expanded to include a broader range of areas and activities such as culture, media, technology, socio-cultural, political, and even biological factors, e.g. climate change.

ExampleGlobal trade has grown enormously since WWII, international trade in manufactured goods alone has grown an estimated 100 times from $95 billion to $12 trillion in the 50 years since 1955. However, globalisation is much more than just trade.

In the last twenty years the breadth and depth of links between nations and between regions has grown enormously. Communications costs have declined dramatically allowing easy daily contact via the web and telephone, enabling the outsourcing of IT and other services, to India for example, and the rise in global work teams.

Other critical links are immigration and transportation, particularly airlines. The International Organisation for Migration estimates that there are two hundred million migrants around the world today, they have largely immigrated from the emerging to the developed countries, particularly to the U.S., Canada, Australia, the U.K. and Continental Europe. Though there are tensions at times in Europe and elsewhere this immigration has changed the face of these regions and increased the personal links across borders very considerably.

Finally the transportation of people and goods has increased very substantially in the last few decades with great growth on the number of flights across borders. During the 80s and 90s growth rates in the number of airlines seats offered of 5% a year were not uncommon, in 2010 there are over 2.3 million flights per month. With this great growth in flights, this has allowed stronger business and personal links. Today we see a world much more interlinked than in the past

Globalization As Internationalization; Internationalization When globalization is interpreted as internationalization, the term refers to a growth of transactions and interdependence between countries. From this perspective, a more global world is one where more messages, ideas, merchandise, money, investments and people cross borders between national-state-territorial units. For certain authors, like Paul Hirst and Grahame Thompson, globalization is an especially intense form of internationalization, so that the global is a particular subset of the international.15 Many other analysts are less discriminating and simply regard the words global and international as synonyms to be used interchangeably.

Globalization As Liberalization;Liberalization A second common analytical dead-end in discussions of globalization has equated the notion with liberalization. In this case, globalization denotes a process of removing officially imposed restrictions on movements of resources between countries in order to form an open and borderless world economy. On this understanding, globalization occurs as authorities reduce or abolish regulatory measures like trade barriers, foreign-exchange restrictions, capital controls, and visa requirements. Globalization As Universalization;

And Globalization As Westernization

Effects of GlobalizationAccording to economists, there are a lot of global events connected with globalization and integration.It is easy to identify the changes brought by globalization.1.Improvement of International Trade.Because of globalization, the number of countries where products can be sold or purchased has increased dramatically.2.Technological Progress.Because of the need to compete and be competitive globally, governments have upgraded their level of technology.3.Increasing Influence of Multinational Companies.A company that has subsidiaries in various countries is called a multinational. Often, the head office is found in the country where the company was established.An example is a car company whose head office is based in Japan. This company has branches in different countries. While the head office controls the subsidiaries, the subsidiaries decide on production. The subsidiaries are tasked to increase the production and profits. They are able to do it because they have already penetrated the local markets.The rise of multinational corporations began after World War II. Large companies refer to the countries where their subsidiaries reside as host countries. Globalization has a lot to do with the rise of multinational corporations.4.Power of the WTO, IMF, and WB. According to experts, another effect of globalization is the strengthening power and influence of international institutions such as the World Trade Organization (WTO), International Monetary Fund (IMF), and World Bank (WB).5.Greater Mobility of Human Resources across Countries.Globalization allows countries to source their manpower in countries with cheap labor. For instance, the manpower shortages in Taiwan, South Korea, and Malaysia provide opportunities for labor exporting countries such as the Philippines to bring their human resources to those countries for employment.6.Greater Outsourcing of Business Processes to Other Countries.China, India, and the Philippines are tremendously benefiting from this trend of global business outsourcing. Global companies in the US and Europe take advantage of the cheaper labor and highly-skilled workers that countries like India and the Philippines can offer7. Civil Society.An important trend in globalization is the increasing influence and broadening scope of the global civil society.Civil society often refers to NGOs (nongovernment organizations). There are institutions in a country that are established and run by citizens. The family, being an institution, is part of the society. In globalization, global civil society refers to organizations that advocate certain issue or cause.There are NGOs that support women's rights and there are those that promote environment preservation. These organizations don't work to counter government policies, but rather to establish policies that are beneficial to all. Both the government and NGOs have the same goal of serving the people.The spread of globalization led to greater influence of NGOs especially in areas of great concern like human rights, the environment, children, and workers. Together with the growing influence of NGOs is the increasing power of multinational corporations. If the trend continues, globalization will pave the way for the realization of the full potential of these two important global actors.