Globalization enhances the level of economic integration among countries. The free flow of goods, services, talent, and ideas has economic implications as well as political ramifications. Globalization has been the driving force of value creation but also of inequality; it offers greater choices of goods and services but has also caused the disappearance of domestic companies that could not adapt to global competition. The latter may result in higher unemployment and, in some cases, deteriorating quality of life in the cities where these firms are located. In turn, the negative effects may contribute to the increasing nativist political parties observed in both developed and developing countries asking for a reduction of globalization.
As many other dimensions in our social and economic interactions evolve, so does globalization. In this edition of the Criterion of the Month we will explore the perceptions of mid- and upper-level managers around the world on globalization.
There are several variables that capture aspects of globalization in the Executive Opinion Survey. Let us concentrate on four economies to examine how these different criteria evolved during the last 15 years: China, which in the last twenty-five years has expanded its trade and investments with the rest of the world; Germany, which is the strongest economy of the European Union; and United Kingdom and the USA, two countries that in the last few years have been inward looking. Figure 1 captures the response to the statement “The national culture is open to foreign ideas” in three periods: 2002, 2008 and 2018.
