Sunday, April 5, 2009

Impact of Globalization

The economy is constantly becoming more global and less local. Globalization is the driving force behind many of the technological advances of today. IT outsourcing is a result of globalization where multinational corporations have made it feasible for American companies to send hundreds of thousands of jobs to India. The companies exploit workers and take advantage of cheap labor, which is a widely known negative aspect of outsourcing IT. Regardless, it still happens and millions in profit go to the companies that outsource their IT. This is a result of the increasingly cheaper cost of information technology that has allowed for globalization to exist and to be so easy.

The cost of overseas calling has also significantly decreased. I have a huge family and lots of aunts, uncles and cousins that live around the world. I remember when I was younger and we barely spoke to them over the phone (land lines) and when we went to visit family in India and needed to call back home my dad had to leave my aunt’s home to go somewhere that had overseas calling capabilities. Things have changed so much since then, because we call our family members more frequently, with ease and the cost of the calls are significantly cheaper.

Virtual offices are also used more frequently because of globalization. Individuals communicate more over the phone, email, video chat, and other communication technologies. The rentable spaces for virtual offices and the actual virtual workplace environments are perfect for global companies. They increase the number of global companies and expand the reach of many companies. Is this a good thing? Is globalization occurring because of the technology available or is the technology a result of globalization? Is it happening at the same time? Does it depend on the situation?

Globalization is a huge issue today, especially because of the state of the current economy. Do you think that globalization is positive? Negative? or both? Is the technology that allows for the global economy more destructive in the long run or helpful for people/ societies?

12 comments:

  1. There are clearly countless pros to glbalization but I think some businesses may intensely advocate globalization because they want to hide/be able to get away with the fact that they are taking significant, inhumane advantage of poor workers all over the world. Globalization of technology and business goals have made the continuation of sweatshops much easier, for example.

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  2. Globalization started to take place long before IT outsourcing took place. Regardless of whether IT outsourcing takes place, other companies are still going to take advantage of cheap overseas labor. Therefore, I don't really see technology as being a catalyst for globalization. An important question to ask is whether workers overseas doing IT work for American companies would be better off if they had not been hired. If the worker is receiving higher wages than they would otherwise receive from a local company, then it is hard to argue against globalization.

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  3. I think that globalization is a necessary "evil", if you will, that comes with increasing economic prosperity. I think that over all globailization has improved the standard of living for people all over the world. Granted, globalization does come with many flaws. The exploitation of developing country's workers is something that can't be overlooked. Along with this there is the ecological concerns of rapid industrialization of these developing countries without proper regulations for the environment.

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  4. I think that the new technologies helped to facilitate globalization. New technology made it easier for people to travel and communicate with people overseas. Maybe now, the needs of globalization create new technologies but initially it was the technology. As for whether globalization is a negative or a positive, it depends on what you are looking at and how it effects. Someone who lost their job to cheaper factory workers in another country may think it is bad whereas the company that moved to cheaper environment might be thanking their lucky stars for globalization. On the hole, in regards to economics, I think that globalization’s utility is a positive one. It creates jobs all over the world in poor and rich countries a like. Also I don’t think technology has anything to do with the current state of the economy. The current state of the economy is based on practices of capitalism that went unchecked. Technology may have helped to make the behavior easier, but it didn’t create the behavior in the first place.

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  5. I think globalization is both inevitable and a force that has the potential to be positive. Globalization as we know it today has been growing and evolving for hundreds of years. Dating back to the silk road, the expansive trade route connecting Asia, Europe and northern Africa, globalization has boosted economies and ultimately benefited humanity through spreading goods to more people around the world. Today, globalization has taken on a sort of stigma, as it has increasingly become a symbol in the western world for lost jobs to "third-world" countries. And although the outsourcing of many IT jobs in the United States has cost many their careers and well being, I think it will benefit us eventually. By moving these jobs to places where the same task can be done at a cheaper cost, we in the western world are making more room for innovation in the world place. Instead of needing to hire large numbers of people to complete simple tasks, we can employ those same people to do something perhaps more complex, or something more research-based that can lead to a new product or service. We're freeing up a lot of the work force and opening up doors to more intellectual jobs that will ultimately lead to new technologies and inventions.

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  6. Globalization has obviously made a huge impact on our world today, especially in the last ten years. In this time frame, the world has seen dramatic increases in output and such a widespread communication has been reached that companies across the globe are expanding to incredible numbers and sizes. Its incredible that we are able to outsource our businesses across the globe just because of the internet's capabilities. Its also unbelievable that all of these people working for American companies have nothing to do with America really except for there company. For example, the Indian people who are phone IT people companies surely make less money than they would in the US. Its disappointing that our massive market is slowly being taken away because of the cheapness of other countries, but yet again its good to employ people who normally wouldn't be. Its really promoting the idea though of a global economy and an economy that is based more on the international side of things instead of what we know locally. IT outsourcing is an interesting avenue that is certainly changing the face of American business as we know it.

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  7. Here is a website that is the end product of the global scale outsourcing trend http://www.getafreelancer.com/. This website simple allow people to post any kind of IT related project and web designers, programmers and copywriter all over the world. I recently use it and upload a project about making a website, all I need to do is give a description of the website I want to make and the budget, then, within only within two hours I got dozens of reply from website designer all over the world and bid for my project. I was very surprised to see how effective this website is and the tremendous demand for outsourcing projects.

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  8. Globalization I believe is for the better, despite the fact that it takes away from the American working class. With this said I believe it is just one of those things that a business has to eventually become apart of in order to provide the BEST services possible to Americans. Globalization is a double edge sword, that takes jobs away from those who need it the most and yet reap many benefits to sew upon those who consume their products. Perhaps if I new people personally who were affected by a company globalizing my opinion would be different, but especially in todays economic situation I think its sort of necessary now for companies to expand and globalize.

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  9. You raise some interesting questions in your post. The first important thing is that technology is neither good nor bad on its own-- it requires human use or misuse to then become good or bad. Secondly, the progress of technology and the development of how people live is an intricate relationship. Technology never just develops for its own sake, but rather people find a new need that technology can fill, and use the available technology to create it. How people live then adjusts to take advantage of this new technology.

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  10. While globalization does result in taking advantage of cheaper labor abroad, the individuals providing this labor are doing so because it is better than their alternative choices. It also allows for these individuals to use the IT skills to their fullest potential, which may not be possible otherwise. Hopefully, such outsourcing practices will aid developing countries to grow faster, with respect to technology.

    Since jobs are now a globalized market, it would be great if certain laws could be globalized as well. I understand that this is a much less practical concept, but this would allow for minimum wages to be applied to all workers, so that their labor could not be taken advantage of. Since these wages are likely to be less than those in America, globalization would still occur. If this were possible to enforce, globalization would create a much more positive impact.

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  11. Globalization can be scary, but the issue remains the same it is productive. If I can choose from 6 billion potential employees and customers around the world or 300 million within the US, then I choose the 6 billion. It provides more competition in the job market and though some argue that foreign labor is being exploited, they demand jobs and we supply them. If we give them the first leg up than they may learn these skills and become entrepreneurial allowing them to receive adequate compensation for their work. Also they are lower level jobs in companies, opening more managerial/high level jobs because of greater profit margins.

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  12. I think it is fair to say that globalization and technology are directly related to each other. By this I mean that one cannot progress in society today, without the other. Globalization has definitely affected technology by opening new doors to people in far reaches of the world that were once considered third world. At the same time, as technological innovation occurs throughout the world, more places become so well connected, that even more innovation can take place. In this way, I truly believe that the connection between globalization and technological innovation is important and should not go unnoticed.

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