Practice 2
What exactly does globalization mean? Concepts related to globalization include “internationalization”, “multidomestic marketing”, and “multinational or transnational marketing”, suggesting that the basic criterion is transactions across national boundaries. In the marketing and strategic management literature, globalization is conceptualized as a means to gain competitive advantage by locating different stages of production in different geographic regions according to the particular region's comparative advantage. This conceptualization focuses only on the economic aspects of globalization; social, cultural and political factors are only considered in the context of achieving economic advantage. Thus, being “culturally sensitive” in global markets is being able to sell one's product with enough ingenuity to avoid possible pitfalls arising from the seller's ignorance of local customs. International marketing textbooks discuss such cultural pitfalls in great detail; however, the cultural contest of globalization is always framed by the economy.
Broader conceptualization of globalization can be found in other disciplines such as sociology and anthropology. Waters defined globalization as “a social process in which the constraints of geography on social and cultural arrangements recede and in which people become increasingly aware that they are receding.” This conceptualization with its much broader scope, allows for the examination of a number of consequences of globalization, not jut economic but social, cultural and political ones.
Tourism, Globalization and Sustainable Development Tourism is one of the fastest growing sectors of the global economy and developing countries are attempting to cash in on this expanding industry in an attempt to boost foreign investment and financial reserves. While conceding that the uncontrolled growth of this industry can result in serious environmental and social problems, the United Nations contends that such negative effects can be controlled and reduced.
Before getting into the cold facts of global economics, let me begin with another story to warm up. I was perplexed when I recently read in the newspaper that Thailand’s forestry chief had said: “Humans can’t live in the forest because human beings aren’t animals. Unlike us, animals can adapt themselves to the wild or any environment naturally.” This was to legitimatize the government’s plan to remove hundreds of thousands of rural and hill tribe people from protected areas. This man, who is in charge of conserving the forests, is at the same time very strongly pushing to open up the country’s 81 national parks to outside investors and visitors in the name of “eco-tourism”. Can we conclude, then, that the forestry chief considers developers and tourists as animals that know how to adapt to the forest and behave in the wild naturally?
While authorities want to stop the access to forest lands and natural resources of village people, another group of people—namely tourism developers and tourists with lots of money to spend—are set to gain access to the area. While authorities believe that local people, who have often lived in the area for generations, are not capable of managing and conserving their land and natural resources—under a community forestry scheme for example—they believe they themselves in cooperation with the tourist industry can properly manage and conserve “nature” under a national eco-tourism plan. Taking the above quote seriously, cynics may be tempted to say there is obviously a gap between “human rights” and “animal rights”.
How is this story linked to globalization? First of all, that humans cannot live in the forest is—of course—not a Thai concept. It is a notion of Western conservation ideology—an outcome of the globalization of ideas and perceptions. Likewise, that eco-tourism under a “good management” system is beneficial to local people and nature is also a Western concept that is being globalized. In fact, Thailand’s forestry chief thinks globally and acts locally. A lesson that can be learned from this is that the slogan “Think Globally, Act Locally” that the environmental movements have promoted all the years, has not necessarily served to preserve the environment and safeguard local communities’ rights, but has been co-opted and distorted by official agencies and private industries for profit-making purposes. The tourism industry is demonstrating this all too well
Many developing countries, facing debt burdens and worsening trade terms, have turned to tourism promotion in the hope that it brings foreign exchange and investment. Simultaneously, leading international agencies such as the World Bank, United Nations agencies and business organizations like the Word Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) have been substantially involved to make tourism a truly global industry.
However, tourism in developing countries is often viewed by critics as an extension of former colonial conditions because from the very beginning, it has benefited from international economic relationships that structurally favor the advanced capitalist countries in the North. Unequal trading relationships, dependence on foreign interests, and the division of labor have relegated poor countries in the South to becoming tourism recipients and affluent countries in the North to the position of tourism generators, with the latter enjoying the freedom from having to pay the price for the meanwhile well-known negative impacts in destinations.
What elements of globalization can be explicitly defined using the NLS_LANG environment variable?()
Globalization support is implemented through the text- and character-processing functions provided by which Oracle feature?()
Globalization is making the world smaller, faster and richer. Still, 9/11 and avian flu remind us that a smaller, faster world is not necessarily a safer world. Our world is bursting with knowledge—but desperately in need of wisdom. Now, when sound bites are getting shorter, when instant messages crowd out essays, and when individual lives grow more crazy, college graduates capable of deep reflection are what our world needs.
Globalization What exactly does globalization mean? Concepts related to globalization include “internationalization”, “multidomestic marketing”, and “multinational or transnational marketing”, suggesting that the basic criterion is transactions across national boundaries. In the marketing and strategic management literature, globalization is conceptualized as a means to gain competitive advantage by locating different stages of production in different geographic regions according to the particular region’s comparative advantage. This conceptualization focuses only on the economic aspects of globalization; social, cultural and political factors are only considered in the context of achieving economic advantage. Thus, being “culturally sensitive” in global markets is being able to sell one’s product with enough ingenuity to avoid possible pitfalls arising from the seller’s ignorance of local customs. International marketing textbooks discuss such cultural pitfalls in great detail; however, the cultural contest of globalization is always framed by the economy.
Broader conceptualization of globalization can be found in other disciplines such as sociology and anthropology. Waters defined globalization as “a social process in which the constraints of geography on social and cultural arrangements recede and in which people become increasingly aware that they are receding.” This conceptualization with its much broader scope, allows for the examination of a number of consequences of globalization, not jut economic but social, cultural and political ones.
While there are a few different conceptualizations of globalization, researchers seem to be in agreement that there are at least three dimensions of globalization: economic, political and cultural. The economic aspects of globalization stem from the spread of the capitalist world economy and the resulting expansion of goods and services. The need for cheap raw materials, cheap labor and new markets saw the expansion of the capitalist world economy from one that was primarily Eurocentric to one that encompassed the entire world. This process was achieved by various means and often involved overcoming political resistances in the new markets. The political aspects of globalization involved establishing control over markets and raw materials through either the use of direct military power or the establishment of international institutions that control such markets. The rise of the nation-state is an example of the political aspect of globalization, although it is argued that advances in telecommunications and information systems and the resulting constructions of institutions that transience territorial boundaries are making the nation-state obsolete.
If the economic and political aspects of globalization involve material and power exchanges, the cultural of globalization involves the expression of symbols that represents facts, meanings, beliefs, preferences, tastes and values. In fact, these symbolic exchanges are increasingly displacing economic and political exchanges in the spread of global mass culture. Traditional barriers of language pose no problems to modem means of cultural production such as satellite television and film. However, the new “global culture”, despite its manifestations through consumption of global products and symbols in different part of the globe, is essentially the culture of dominant groups centered in the West.
Globalization for Change in Higher Education What is globalization and how does it affect higher education policy and academic institutions? The answer is deceivingly simple and the implications are surprisingly complex. For higher education, globalization implies the social, economic, and technological forces that shape the realities of the 21st century. These elements include advanced information technology, new ways of thinking about financing higher education and a concomitant acceptance of market forces and commercialization, unprecedented mobility for students and professors, and other developments. Significantly, the idea of mass access to higher education has meant unprecedented expansion of higher education everywhere—there are about 134 million students in postsecondary education worldwide, and many countries have seen unprecedented and sustained expansion in the past several decades. These global trends are for the most part inevitable. Nations, and academic institutions, must constructively cope with the implications.
Massification
Massification is without question the most ubiquitous global influence of the past half century or more. The United States had the first mass higher education system, beginning as early as the1920s. Europe followed in the 1960s, and parts of Asia a decade or so later. The developing countries were the last to expand. Most of the growth of the 21st century is taking place in developing and middle-income countries. North America, Europe, and a number of Pacific Rim nations now enroll 60 percent or more of the relevant age group6 in higher education. What has massification brought?
Public good vs. private good.Stimulated in part by the financial pressures of massification and also by broader changes in economic thinking, including the neoliberal agenda, higher education is increasingly considered in economic terms a private good—a benefit accruing mainly to individuals who should pay for it rather than a public good that contributes benefits to society and thus should be financially supported by the state.
Varied funding patterns.For most countries, the state has traditionally been the main funder of higher education. Massification has placed great strains on state funding, and in all cases governments no longer believe they can adequately fund mass higher education. Other sources of funding need to be found—including student tuition and fees (typically the largest source), a variety of government-sponsored and private loan programs, university income generating programs (such as industry collaboration or consulting), and philanthropic support.
Decline in quality vs. conditions of study. On average in most countries, the quality of higher education has declined. In a mass system, top quality cannot be provided to all students. 11 It is not affordable, and the ability levels of both students and professors necessarily become more diverse. University study and teaching are no longer a preserve for the elite—both in terms of ability and wealth. While the top of a diversified academic system may maintain its quality12 (although in some countries the top sector has also suffered), the system as a whole declines.
Globalization of the Academic Marketplace
More than 2 million students are studying abroad, and it is estimated that this number will increase to 8 million in a few years. Many others are enrolled in branch campuses and twinning programs, There are many thousands of visiting scholars and postdocs studying internationally. Most significantly, there is a global circulation of academics. Ease of transportation, IT, the use of English, and the globalization of the curriculum have tremendously increased the international circulation of academic talent. Flows of students and scholars move largely from South to North—from the developing countries to North America and Europe. And while the “brain drain” of the past has become more of a “brain exchange”, with flows of both people and knowledge back and forth across borders and among societies, the great advantage still accrues to the traditional academic centers at the expense of the peripheries. Even China, and to some extent India, with both large and increasingly sophisticated academic systems, find themselves at a significant disadvantage in the global academic marketplace. For much of Africa, the traditional brain drain remains largely a reality.
Globalization is making the world smaller, faster and richer. Still, 9/11 and avian flu remind us that a smaller, faster world is not necessarily a safer world. Our world is bursting with knowledge—but desperately in need of wisdom. Now, when sound bites are getting shorter, when instant messages crowd out essays, and when individual lives grow more crazy, college graduates capable of deep reflection are what our world needs.
Globalization is making the world smaller, faster and richer. Still, 9/11 and avian flu remind us that a smaller, faster world is not necessarily a safer world. Our world is bursting with knowledge—but desperately in need of wisdom. Now, when sound bites are getting shorter, when instant messages crowd out essays, and when individual lives grow more crazy, college graduates capable of deep reflection are what our world needs.
What elements of globalization can be explicitly defined using the NLS_LANG environment variable?()