lization is not the result of a planned activity by a government or a military power
a toward ever larger geopolitical entities. Nor is it the product of some growing ideological conformity on how we should live. It is, rather, the organic result of the virtuous cycle a, by which economic convergence and the diffusion of innovation raise standards of living over time. (Lewis & Harris, 1992, p. 114)
In the above context, globalization has been occurring in one form or another for 3,000 years. The Phoenicians "spread innovations almost entirely through the movement of products (trade) to small centers of development scattered around the Mediterranean. The diffusion of process technology followed after·sometimes centuries later" (Lewis & Harris, 1992, p. 114). Although the speed of globalization through Europe, North America, and Japan had increased by the first-half of the 20th century, it was still limited almost entirely to trade in manufactured goods because of (1) the differences in the way people lived in different parts of the world and because of (2) the relative economic unimportance of trade in services. What is new about globalization in the contemporary period is that innovations "occurring within any of the developed economies can be transferred to and adopted within any other developed economy in a minimum amount of time" (Lewis & Harris, 1992, p. 115).
Globalization in industrial trade is growing in relation to both finished products and components. "It is believed that this phenomenon will grow as it is aided by the progressive reduction in barriers between countries and differences between consumers" (Balasubramanyam & Greenaway, 1992, p. 176). To obtain competitive advantages in global industries, all producers (including those in other countries) are competitors. Market integration means that choices in design, purchasing, and assignment of production and distribution tasks must coordinated on a globa...