Impact of IT on Globalization

Question: Discuss about the Impact of IT on Globalization. Answer: Introduction Globalization has been a catchword for decades and slowly becoming more rampant with the adapting government laws (Esf.edu, 2016). The purpose of this literature review can be divided into two sections; the first aim is to critically analyze the meaning of the term globalization and understand the meaning of the term in daily life. The secondary aim of this work is to analyze the impact of Information Technology (IT) on the process of evolution of globalization. Globalization The term globalization was first coined by Theodore levitt, who was a professor at the Harvard Business School, and had great contributions in reviving marketing (Feder, 2015). Hirst Thompson Bromley (2015) have defined globalization as a force that decides the greater part of the social life which is in turn is decided by the global processes. Due to this force the boundaries that segment cultures, economies, borders and territories are slowly but evidently vanishing. Enloe (2016) have said that a genuine globalised economy is considered to be emerged, and the impacts of factors like the domestic strategies regarding the economic management fail to create any difference. Hence it can be understood from the excerpt that the basic dynamics of the world economy has already been globalised and the major driver of the global forces are the large corporations of the world. Similarly, Hay Marsh (2016) have demystified globalization as diversification of associations, ideas and the mythol ogies. Globalization has also been presented as global free market where, the mobility of various resources e.g. goods, human resource, capital (e.g. investments and finances). According to Oxford dictionary globalization is defined as, The process by which businesses or other organizations develop international influence or startoperatingon an international scale. Hence it could be understood that globalization in its primitive form is opening up of the market to the companies that are non native to the land, so that the ventures could use the resources that are abundant and in turn earn revenues for them. There are many aspects to globalization; opening up of the market to the foreign players creates a deep impact upon the society. As stated by Allan Scott (2013), who severely criticizes globalism, the market forces destroys the social solidarity of the communities and gradually becomes an unstoppable force that makes the political forces of the nation helpless, thus finally becom ing the puppets of such market forces. The book published by author contains the various ill effects and the limitations of globalization, which according to him is a form of Americanization of the market and the society. Impact of Globalization on normal life The impact of the globalization in Australia can be segmented into three different areas, which are Political globalization, Economic globalization and Social globalization. The Political globalization can be traced back to the era of British colonization or Imperial globalization during which the British settlers started colonizing the whole nation. These foreigners established a government that paid little heed to the locals, hence making the traditional culture extinct. Akram-Lodhi Kay (2012) have also presented that various acts like charitable gestures from the government too come under such globalization technique which establishes a friendly, neutral or inimical attitude of people towards other nations. The Economic Globalization is the flow of funds or finances from a place to other. Australia is rich in natural resources, and globalization has created a plethora of opportunities for the locals of the country. According to Stromquist Monkman (2014), the country has a huge reserve of minerals and raw materials, which provides the primary industry for the people. The main industries of Australia are transportation equipments, mining, chemical industry, food processing, and the steel industry. It can be seen that all these equipments are exported and the valuation of the export was found to be 0.3 trillion USD. The Social globalization can be understood as the mixing and interaction of culture and communities from various regions around the earth. In this aspect Australia has been very fortunate. Being a landlocked country, Australia has been totally cutoff from the other countries. The globalization has helped the country to come in touch with the mainstream world (Turner Holton 2015). Australia owes a lot to the technological innovations like telephones and internet. As a resident of Australia, globalization to me is interaction between the different countries in various areas that have been specified above. Globalization helps various services of world class categories to be accessed in home and allows sharing of the home services and benefits with others. The political globalization has allowed integration of the whole country and setting up of government. The economic globalization has allowed Australia to sell its products to various countries and social globalization helped us with the cultural diversity. IT and Globalization The concept Globalization had been existent from time immemorial, but earlier it used to take days, months and sometimes years to convey even the smallest of messages. Hence the impact has been minimal but with technological advancements like telephones and telegraph made messaging very easy, airplanes reduced the time of travels, which made the world smaller and acted as the catalyst to the globalization (Dunning 2014). Globalization has completely changed the way the world used to work. Now the concept of local market has been changed to Global Market. Globalization has become part of various sectors like political, economic and social. Over past few decades the countries around the world have come even closer with the advancements in IT. Innovations in IT have helped in bringing the countries closer and have now become the major driving force behind formulation of business strategies for the organizations. The monumental catalysts that were provided by IT were PCs (Personal Comput ers), WWW (World Wide Web), Workflow Software, Supply chaining, etc. PCs allow access to huge amount of computing power and information. With this tools associated with WWW an individual is capable of obtaining, authoring, modifying and distributing information that was very difficult for the previous generation. PCs and WWW made a user a global citizen and expanded their reach. Workflow software is automation software that automates the business processes and reduces the human involvement (Stromquist Monkman, 2014). The supply chain is the sequence of the processes that are involved in producing the commodity and finally distributing it to the market. Supply Chaining recently with the adoption of IT tools has allowed automation of every aspect of order and delivery process. IT has helped in integration of horizontals between the suppliers, retailers and customers which helps in creation of value in the company. The technology has allowed intimation to the suppliers whenever a product is scanned at the counter of a shop thus informing them about the need that has been created thus helping them in identification of market (Malekshahi Heydari Moradi 2014). Conclusion The report here has discussed the meaning of globalization from academic literature and has discussed the impact of globalization on normal life. While describing its effect, the impact of globalization on politics, society and economy has been presented to understand the involvement in regular life. Finally the effect of IT on globalization has been presented and the contributions of various contributing factors have been discussed. References Akram-Lodhi, A.H. Kay, C. eds., 2012.Peasants and Globalization: Political Economy, Agrarian Transformation and Development. Routledge. Dunning, J.H., 2014.The Globalization of Business (Routledge Revivals): The Challenge of the 1990s. Routledge. Enloe, C., 2016.Globalization and militarism: Feminists make the link. Rowman Littlefield. Esf.edu. 2016. Globalization and the Transformation of Environmental Governance: An Introduction. [online] Available at: https://www.esf.edu/es/sonnenfeld/global_intro.htm [Accessed 14 Sep. 2016]. Feder, B. 2015. Theodore Levitt, 81, Who Coined the Term 'Globalization', Is Dead. [online] Nytimes.com. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/06/business/06levitt.html?_r=0 [Accessed 14 Sep. 2016]. Hay, C. Marsh, D. eds., 2016.Demystifying globalization. Springer. Hirst, P., Thompson, G. Bromley, S., 2015.Globalization in question. John Wiley Sons. Malekshahi, A., Heydari, M. Moradi, M., 2014. Supplychain Innovation Effect on Perceived Organizational Performance in Industrial Manufacturing.World Applied Sciences Journal,32(6), pp.1147-1152. Oxforddictionaries.com. 2016. globalization - definition of globalization in English from the Oxford dictionary. [online] Available at: https://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/globalization [Accessed 14 Sep. 2016]. Scott, A. ed., 2013.The limits of globalization. Routledge. Stromquist, N.P. Monkman, K. eds., 2014.Globalization and education: Integration and contestation across cultures. RL Education. Turner, B.S. Holton, R.J. eds., 2015.The Routledge international handbook of globalization studies. Routledge.