Theories of international trade, foreign direct investment and firm internationalization: a critique (original) (raw)

Globalisms: Imaginary and Real

2000

One can't read far in the mushrooming literature on globalism without encountering this quotation, sometimes four or five times in one anthology. It is usually taken as a transparent statement of what, in more vulgar times, would have been called "hegemonic intent." But that phrase, and the ideas informing it, have been overtaken by a newer wave of theory, one that permits us to ask whether or not this slogan actually has a practice. Coca-Cola's 1999 misadventures in France, where the government blocked its purchase of Orangina and bottling contamination reduced its market share, certainly indicate some local limits. Because Coca-Cola and McDonald's now receive half their income overseas, we could even ask if they are American companies any longer. One doesn't find that kind of analysis in too many of the books cited below. They are all concerned with globalism, but most remain focused on theoretical treatments. One hungers for the specifics that writing on...

Our Globalization Era among Success, Obstacles and Doubts

IntechOpen eBooks, 2022

In the last decades, the never-ending and unlimited expanding of both international economies and operations became globalization. Among its main features, one could recall the enormous increase of world macroeconomic quantities (Gross World Product, Inter-continental Trade, FDI), as well as financial values (public debts and currency printing). The chapter tries to quantify them, by a statistical analysis of historical data (Section 1). Section 2 is dedicated to the strategic problems of firms, in particular the threats and opportunities for (inter) national firms willing to become global, and obstacles are included in Section 3. This given, it deals with the behavior of countries from the political and juridical points of view, and those ones passed form initial perplexities, distaste, or even hostility to a favorable behavior. Conclusions (Section 4) recall both the problematic alternative for globalized companies between "the world as our next door" and their social responsibilities and the similar problem for host countries, between socioeconomic advantages and protection of local workers, resources, and environment.

The myth of globalisation and its strategic consequences

1999

Het lijkt steeds meer 'bon ton' te zijn om in elke maatschappij-analyse het concept 'globalisering' op zijn minst even te vermelden, al was het maar in de vorm van een vrijblijvende voetnoot. In wetenschappelijk onderzoek, in het politiek discours of in fijnzinnige verslaggeving blijkt men er veelal van uit te gaan dat de introductie van deze term heel wat werk overbodig maakt. Globalisering is een handige ' deus ex machina' die vaak ten onrechte in het verhaal gebracht wordt. Gezien de alomtegenwoordigheid en alomvattendheid van globalisering is het evident dat er niet altijd met de nodige kritische omzichtigheid wordt mee omgesprongen. Dan zou immers blijken dat het 'populaire beeld' dat over globalisering bestaat niet strookt met de empirische dimensie ervan. Als empirisch verschijnsel is globalisering onmiskenbaar, maar t.a.v. dat 'populaire beeld' evengoed een 'overstatement'. Er bestaat echter nog een andere, minstens even belangrijke dimensie van globalisering: potentiële globalisering. De klassieke wetenschappelijke methodes zijn niet meteen in staat om deze dimensie fatsoenlijk in kaart te brengen, waardoor velen ze dan ook gemakkelijk aan de kant schuiven. Toch zijn er heel wat argumenten voor handen die leiden tot de vaststelling dat deze ietwat onvatbare potentiële dimensie best wel effectieve gevolgen kan hebben. Globalisering is niet louter, maar óók een mythe, en-zo blijkt-een mythe met een hoge politieke bruikbaarheidswaarde. Carl Devos is assistent bij de Vakgroep Politieke Wetenschappen (Universiteit Gent). It is quite fashionable these days to mention globalisation in academic research, political speeches or a news coverage. In many occasions, those who mention globalisation assume that they can refrain from a more elaborate analysis since the introduction of the 'deus ex machina' globalisation does the trick. Since globalisation is such an ubiquitous and all-embracing concept, it is rather evident that in many cases, a critical attitude is lacking. If one approaches globalisation more carefully, it becomes clear that the popular perception of globalisation does not correspond with the empirical dimension of globalisation. Globalisation is, as an empirical phenomenon, unmistakable but also an overstatement. However, there is another, and very important, dimension of globalisation: potential globalisation. The fact that it is rather difficult to examine this dimension using the standard procedures of scientific research does not imply that potential globalisation has no real consequences. Globalisation suffers from a kind of mythologisation which gives it a high political utility.

Globalistics and Globalization Studies: Global Transformations and Global Future. Yearbook

2018

The present volume is the fifth in the series of yearbooks with the title Globalistics andGlobalization Studies. The subtitle of the present volume is Global Transformations and GlobalFuture. We become more and more accustomed to think globally and to see global processes. Andour future can all means be global. However, is this statement justified? Indeed, in recent years,many have begun to claim that globalization has stalled, that we are rather dealing with theprocess of anti-globalization. Will not we find ourselves at some point again in an edificespanning across the globe, but divided into national apartments, separated by walls of high tariffsand mutual suspicion? Of course, some setbacks are always possible, because the process ofglobalization cannot develop smoothly. It is a process which is itself emerging fromcontradictions and is shaped by a new contradiction. They often go much further than underlyingsystemic changes allow. They break forward, as the vanguard of a victor...