Overview of Globalization: A Two-Headed Coin
The concept of the globalization of markets was first introduced by Harvard Professor Theodore Levitt with his classic article titled ôThe Globalization of Marketsö in the Harvard Business Review in 1984. In this article, Levitt (1984) assumed that the world-wide success of a growing list of products that have become household names, is evidence that consumers world-wide would develop preference for standardised products of multinational companies. Despite deep rooted cultural differences, consumer taste would become alike, or as Levitt (1984) formulated it, homogenised. In consequence, he contends, the traditional multinational corporation (MNC) strategy of tailoring it is products to the needs of multiple markets, may put it as a severe disadvantage vis-a-vis competitors who apply marketing imagination to the task of developing, advanced, reliable, standardise products at the right price on global scale.
Kenichi Ohmae (1990) put the globalization of markets more into the context of the MNC, which is capable due to a borderless world, of operating where it confronts the most promising business conditions. He furthermore emphasises the individual capability of peoples who, can choose as well the most promising working environment in a borderless world:
TodayÆs global corporations are borderless because consumers have become less nationalistic. True global corporations serve the interest of customers and not governments. They invest, they train, they pay taxes, they built up infrastructure and they provide good value to customers in all the countries where they do find business (Ohmae, 1990).
According to Edwards (1999), globalization reflects a business orientation based on the belief that the world is becoming more homogenous and that distinctions between national markets are not only fading but, for some products, will eventually disappear. Ideologically as well a...