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Business Fundamentals was developed by the Global Text Project, which is working to create open-content electronictextbooks that are freely available on the website http://globaltext.terry.uga.edu. Distribution is also possible viapaper, CD, DVD, and via this collaboration, through Connexions. The goal is to make textbooks available to the manywho cannot afford them. For more information on getting involved with the Global Text Project or Connexions email us atdrexel@uga.edu and dcwill@cnx.org.

Authors: Vlad Malamud, Yevgeniy Rotenberg

Editor: Douglas Allen

Reviewers: Dean Murray Young (Thompson Rivers University, Canada) Timothy B Folta (Purdue University)

Contributing authors: Wesley Scott Cables, Ricardo Cubillos, Mike Davis, Vesselin Dotkov, Loiuse Doyle, Barbara Gabhauer, Glenna Gagliardi, Melissa Harrison Hiatt, Katie Holtmeier, Alisa Jeffrey, Alexia Jennings, TimPitner, Ashley Randall, Dag Johan Sundby, Nathalie Tryon, Jeffrey Wiant, Sarah Wilson

Globalization: opportunities and threats to developing country business

To succeed in business today, it is critical to understand the changing global business world and the environment in which a business operates. Not only are entrepreneurs faced with the internal factors affecting their business, they must also understand the external environment in which they operate.

In the United States and Western Europe, globalization has been highly controversial and sparked protests driven by fears of outsourcing jobs, ceding authority to international organizations and declining labor and environmental standards. Views of globalization in lower income countries, however, are more positive. A recent Pew survey found that there was more enthusiasm for foreign trade and investment in less industrialized countries than in industrialized ones. In sub-Saharan Africa, 56% of respondents thought, “growing global trade and business ties are very good for my country (Dollar, 2003).” In developing countries in Asia, 37% had a positive view of globalization, while only 28% of respondents in the United States and Western Europe had such a view (Dollar, 2003). This section discusses the concept of globalization and its positive and negative implications for developing country business.

This chapter will utilize examples of large corporations, as these firms incorporate all necessary aspects required to run a successful business.

What is globalization?

Globalization is difficult to define because it has many dimensions—economic, political, cultural and environmental. The focus here is on the economic dimension of globalization. Economic globalization refers to the “quickly rising share of economic activity in the world [that] seems to be taking place between people in different countries” (World Bank Briefing Paper, 2001). More specifically, economic globalization is the result of the increasing integration of economies around the world, particularly through trade and financial flows and the movement of people and knowledge across international borders (IMF Issue Brief, 2000).

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Source:  OpenStax, Business fundamentals. OpenStax CNX. Oct 08, 2010 Download for free at http://cnx.org/content/col11227/1.4
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